India, after half a century of keeping its higher education doors closed to foreigners, is on the cusp of opening itself to the world. The traditional orientation to swadeshi that has characterised much of Indian thinking, at least in higher education, is changing. The wide-ranging National Education Policy (NE

• P 2020 promises higher education reforms in many areas, and internationalisation is prominent among them. Among the underlying ideas is to strengthen India’s “soft power” through higher education collaboration, bringing new ideas and institutions from abroad to stimulate reform and show “best practice”, and in general to ensure that Indian higher education, for the first time, is a global player.