In 2004, India's Congress Party wrested control of parliament from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I present below an interview conducted with Professor Krishna Kumar, Delhi University, the new Government's choice for Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Professor Kumar discusses the ways that liberalisation, privatisation and modernisation complexly interact in late twentieth and early twenty-first century India, paying special attention to their relevance for schooling. Professor Kumar thus links education to some of the themes most salient in the social sciences.