For modern India, the Chinese experience poses the daunting question as to whether democracy and judicial activism are incompatible with development. Can the Chinese rate of economic growth, like that of the Four Asian Dragons previously, only be achieved in an authoritarian political system, dominated by the executive branch of government and its administrative bureaucracy? It is the thesis of this paper that India can - indeed, already has - altered its economic policies without abandoning either representative democracy or the rule of law. The Indian courts, long criticized for obstructing liberalization, have already issued major decisions in support of policies which emphasize efficiency considerations over individual rights to job security in the state sector. The courts accomplished this shift in direction while remaining firmly within the framework of common law adjudication.