IN THE SOUTHERN state of Kerala earlier this year a treasure was discovered in a temple. Hidden in secret vaults for hundreds of years, it is thought to be worth many billions of dollars and includes coins from the Roman empire, Venetian ducats, 16th-century Portuguese money, 17th-century Dutch East India Company currency and even the odd nugget or two from Napoleonic France. "The find is like an economic history of India unfolding," says Gurcharan Das, a writer and former boss of Procter & Gamble in India. For most of its history the subcontinent was open to trade and the outside world. The insularity and protectionism of the 1947-91 period was, he says, "an aberration".
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