I met an entrepreneur recently who was comparing doing business in Asia 's two biggest countries . `` When I 'm in India , '' he said , `` I spend the first 40 minutes of any meeting exchanging niceties . In the last five minutes , we get to business . '' What about China ? `` We do business for 40 minutes . Right at the end , we chit-chat for five . '' It 's only an anecdote , but the results seem to bear it out . China gets things done ; India invents ways not to . China dazzles the world by hosting an impeccable Olympics ; India struggles to complete basic infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games . Perhaps that 's why it 's fascinating to watch the rise of India 's Narendra Modi , the man many believe will be India 's next Prime Minister . Modi 's sales pitch is simple : he gets things done . For Indians , it 's a seductive notion : Can India be like China ? There is no doubt that India has room to improve . Consider productivity : India 's ranks 60th in the world on the World Economic Forum 's ranking of countries by competitiveness ( China is 29th ) . Or consider ease of doing business : the World Bank ranks India 134th in the world . If you want to start a business , the World Bank says India ranks 179th in the world -- in other words , go ahead and explore opportunities in 178 other countries before you settle on India . It 's as good as putting a `` closed '' sign on the shop door . For businesses in India and beyond , Modi represents an end to red tape . India 's financial markets are salivating at the prospect of his leadership -- stocks are up 20 % since his candidacy was announced last September . If you speak to voters in his home state of Gujarat -- which has flourished with Chinese levels of growth under his leadership in the last decade -- Modi represents the joys of getting rich . Sounds familiar ? That 's because it evokes Deng Xiaoping , the Chinese premier who kick-started national reforms and an unprecedented period of growth . It 's not just Deng . Modi has been compared to a number of world leaders . Some say he would be like Lee Kuan Yew , Singapore 's visionary leader . ( Note that implicit in these comparisons is the understanding that Modi could tend toward being authoritarian ) . Others say the best person to compare Modi to is U.S. President Ronald Reagan -- because both were outsiders resented by traditional elites . Still others insist the best analogy is former British PM Margaret Thatcher , because of their shared appetite for privatization and small government . Modi could be any -- or none -- of those leaders . The truth is we just do n't know ; we do n't have enough information about his track record , and how it could translate across India . But the larger point is that this is not just about Modi , it 's about India . The Carnegie Endowment 's Milan Vaishnav rightly points out that even the most reform-minded prime minister would face many hurdles . Among them , Vaishnav cites a J.P. Morgan study of 50 of the central government 's stalled investment projects : 40 of them fell through because of state , and not central , red tape . Constitutionally , there 's little a prime minister can do about that , no matter how reform-minded . Let me use another anecdote to explain the task ahead for the world 's biggest democracy . Indians are infamous for being unpunctual . So , one wonders , is that genetic ? Are Indians inherently prone to being late to meetings ? The answer is no . Take an Indian who is unpunctual , and place him in New York -- he 'll likely be on time for every meeting he schedules . Similarly , a New Yorker would likely become unpunctual in New Delhi . The reason is that punctuality is based on economic incentive -- if everyone is always on time , then it makes sense to make an effort to be on time . It follows then , punctuality is based on inertia . If everyone 's doing it , it 's in your best interest to follow suit . In a free democracy like India , progress is based on inertia , too . Everyone needs to push at the same time . Indians can dream to have cities like Singapore , Hong Kong or Beijing . But to do so they will need more than just one reform-minded leader . They will need change from the bottom up . For better or worse , such is the nature of India 's secular , constitutional democracy . India can certainly learn from China . But to do that , it does n't have to become China . In the next few weeks and months , that is the issue Indians will be debating .
Ravi Agrawal : India 's business culture could profit from being more like China 's . He says many in India hope winner of the election will introduce more efficiency . While new leadership can focus on economy , it 's not so easy to reshape a nation , he says . Agrawal : For real change , the impetus has to come up from the bottom up .