The sociologist Ashis Nandy once noted that “in India the choice could never be between chaos and stability, but between manageable and unmanageable chaos”. He wrote this in the 1980s, a decade marked by ethnic and caste violence, and bloody religious riots. It applies even more to the India of today, however, and is being made worse by the deterioration and corruption of India’s ruling political elite.

Throughout India’s history its chaos has been largely social and political: from its secessionist movements and sectarian pogroms, to enduring territorial conflicts with China and Pakistan. The bomb blasts in Mumbai last week are but the latest example. Yet the Republic of India now faces challenges that are as much moral as social or political.

The Mumbai blasts have only temporarily shifted off the front pages the corruption scandals that more recently dominated. These have revealed the way in which our politicians have abused the state’s power of eminent domain, its control of infrastructure contracts and its monopoly of natural resources to enrich themselves. Rectifying this is now India’s defining challenge.