India, Jan. 11 -- The following has been excerpted from Shantanu Guha Ray's book, The Diamond Trail: How India Rose to Global Domination on the international diamond trade, which India dominates.

If it were to be sized up against India, Hoveniersstraat, the world's most famous diamond hub, would fit into a pocket. This sleepy neighbourhood in Antwerp is not as iconic as the Pietermaritzburg railway station in South Africa where a young Mahatma Gandhi was thrown off a train by racist whites for riding first class in 1893.

But the Belgian hub is the place where Indians, for over two decades, have dominated the global diamond trade, thereby turning what was once a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood near Antwerp's central station into a zo...