The Indian government has started talking seriously about how it can match China’s double-digit growth. Some Indians argue that, in the long run, their country’s superior “soft architecture” – symbolised by its robust, if imperfect, democracy – mean its growth will be more sustainable than China’s. That is debatable. But even if it is true, the promise of fast growth tomorrow does not do India’s impoverished masses much good today. A recent Oxford University survey finds there are more desperately poor people living in eight Indian states than in sub-Saharan Africa.

India has been growing at roughly 8.5 per cent a year since 2005 and it weathered the financial crisis better than most. But, as China has shown, even faster growth is the best way of attacking poverty. K.M. Chandrasekhar, cabinet secretary, says the key is raising abysmal agricultural productivity. That is fine as far as it goes. More needs doing to improve rural access to finance and best practice. Productivity must be raised through vastly improved infrastructure, something that the government is finally addressing. Liberalising retail – controversial because of its perceived affect on millions of small-scale shopkeepers – might also help, since big retailers would more likely work with farmers to raise efficiency.

There is a broader point. Deepening India’s structural reforms remains the best way of raising its growth potential. India is right that its conservative regulation of banks protected it from the global financial crisis. But that lesson should not be falsely extrapolated as a warning against all market-friendly reforms. Manmohan Singh’s government should give liberalisation another push. It should scale back subsidies, encourage foreign investment and revamp restrictive labour practices. It should also extend the financial services – including greater provision of banking to the poor – to improve returns for the country’s industrious savers.