The growth experience

By the time Alexander the Great reached the Indus River Valley in 326 BCE, he had vanquished three formidable empires: Syria, Egypt and Persia. But on a rainswept night on the banks of the Jhelum, an Indus tributary, the Macedonian conqueror’s quest for global domination collapsed at the hands of a Hindu king.

Greek historians called Alexander’s Indian foe Porus. According to their record, he stood seven feet tall and commanded an army of 30,000 soldiers and two hundred war elephants. After an all-night battle waged in a howling monsoon, Alexander eventually forced Porus to surrender.

But it was a hollow triumph. By Indian standards, Porus was a minor raja. The Magadha emperor, who ruled the lower Ganges River to the east, had many times more men and elephants. Alexander’s men, exhausted and terrified by the prospect of battling another giant Indian army, mutinied, compelling Alexander, the most successful military commander in ancient history, to turn back home.


Modern visitors, too, can find India overwhelming. Passengers disembarking at Indira Gandhi International Airport’s gleaming new third terminal are greeted by the Nine Mudras, an installation of colossal metallic hands looming above the Immigration counter.

The hands symbolise reassurance, benevolence, ‘the oncoming of novel tidings’, and the ‘linkage between the individual… and the ever-throbbing life force of the universe’.

From “Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower”