Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India would like to finish a job he started in 1991. Then, as finance minister in a new government, Singh orchestrated the economic reforms that brought India back from the brink of bankruptcy and set it on a course that made it one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Among the changes were devaluing the rupee, dismantling the infuriatingly bureaucratic business permit system called the license raj, and opening the tightly closed economy to foreign companies. The economic reforms he put in place have been backed by successive national governments and have brought a measure of prosperity and respect to India.

Singh became prime minister in May 2004, when the Congress Party won a surprise victory in national elections. But Congress's triumph was the result of a populist backlash against economic reforms that were seen as benefiting just a few of the 1.1 billion people of India, a large portion of whom remain impoverished, and the party holds power through a loose coalition. Against this backdrop, some...