Optimism about India tends to spike now and again. In 1996, a few years after the country opened to foreign capital, the price of property in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, soared to the highest of any global city, according to one account. In 2007 the country’s economy grew at an annual rate of 9%, leading many to speculate that it might hit double digits. Yet after each of these booms, hopes were dashed. The late-2000s surge made way for financial turbulence in the 2010s.