India's leaders have worked to achieve the greatness that the nation appeared destined for ever since it gained independence in 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, expressed similar objectives early on, but his successors primarily concentrated on internal issues rather than on global leadership because they were overburdened by development issues. India was positioned as an economic success in the post-1991 era for the first time in many decades, signalling that it was about to emerge as a major role on the world stage. The twenty or so years that followed the reforms of 1991 were exciting for India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his ambition for India to adopt a leading role in the world less than a year after he initially took office in May 2014, based on the belief that India was now set to rise as a great power. Grasping Greatness explores the various tasks pertaining to this push for eminence in world affairs. It elaborates the economic, state-building, and international dimensions of this ambition. Eminent thinkers like Rakesh Mohan, Ila Patnaik, Surjit Bhalla, Arjun Subramanian, and others reflect upon the tasks at hand and the desirable routes to achieve them. Edited by Ashley J. Tellis, Bibek Debroy and C. Raja Mohan, Grasping Greatness is an important contribution to the intellectual debates as India enters into a new era on the world stage.