It Costs Just $2,500. It's Cute as a Bug. And It Could Mean Global Disaster.

of it.

As India becomes a car culture, it can find far better role models than the United States. Rather, India should look to Japan and Western Europe, with their super-modern, super-efficient public transportation systems. India is blessed with an extensive rail network that can be upgraded and modernized. New Delhi, proud host of Auto Expo 2008, is also home to one of the world's most impressive mass-transit systems, the Delhi Metro.

But while other Indian cities have asked the Delhi Metro team to build mass-transit systems for them, the most visible pieces of urban infrastructure in India are all geared for the automobile. "Flyovers" carry cars above overcrowded city streets, and multi-lane highways cut through old neighborhoods, sometimes literally slicing homes in half. Pedestrians sprint perilously across these new roads, which often lack crosswalks or overpasses. Millions of bicyclists, who have no designated lanes to use, weave dangerously in and out of stalled, steaming traffic or try to pedal ahead as best they can on pitted, crumbling shoulders.

In fact, India seems hellbent on catching up to where the West was in the mid-20th century, rather than sprinting to where it needs to go in the 21st. Meanwhile, car-addled Western societies are starting to change their ways. Traffic-choked London is taxing cars to encourage drivers to use the Tube instead. Paris has introduced a charming, affordable new system of bicycle rentals. Even New York, home of honking gridlock, has pledged to add hundreds of miles of new bicycle lanes, tax cars along the lines of the London model and require all taxis to be hybrid vehicles.

We can only hope that India and other Asian countries emulate our good new habits rather than our bad old ones. India is a highly status-conscious country, and no status symbol is more exhilarating than a new car. (Sound familiar?) Its new middle class is eager to acquire the goods that only now are within its grasp, especially those that raise their eminence, and they don't want to hear from us gas-guzzling killjoys. As one college student told me last year: "Just when we can finally start to enjoy the things you people have had for decades -- cars, air conditioners -- you tell us, 'Sorry, too late, you can't now.' I mean, you created this mess. You won't reduce your consumption, but you tell us we can't increase ours."

She has a point.

miraukamdar@gmail.com

Mira Kamdar is a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society and the author of "Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World."