On an evening in early October , the announcer at one of our premier news channels screamed 'greed' while describing the misdeeds of the latest victim of Arvind Kejriwal. Earlier that day, Mr Kejriwal had accused Robert Vadra of receiving favours from the real estate company DLF Ltd. In the next breath, the announcer explained that crony capitalism was at the root of the problem.

India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State. By Gurcharan Das. Penguin Global; 320 pages; $25. To be published in Britain in January by Allen Lane; £19.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

Book: India Grows At Night
Authour: Gurcharan Das
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs. 599 pp 307

The way India governs itself has been a source of consternation. It does some things so right, yet there is so much we do wrong. Gurcharan Das's hypothesis is that most of it can be explained if you look at India as a strong society bound by a weak state.

The approach of another festival season raises the old question of the place of myth and classical culture in our contemporary lives. This is not an idle question—it forces one to confront the difficult problem of what it means to be fully and richly human. For millions of young Indians who have risen in recent years and are now part of the confused, upwardly mobile, post-reform internet generation, the question has a new urgency.

It was the same question on everyone's lips. Aggrieved Suparna Prasad Dev asked, "If 50 policemen were at the scene, why didn't they act when a hundred Maruti workers brutally attacked managers and killed my husband?" When the police did finally act, it was too late. The factory was in flames, almost a hundred managers were bleeding, many injured seriously. Awanish Kumar Dev, head of human relations, was dead.

Andimuthu Raja, former telecom minister, having spent 15 months in jail under trial in the 2G spectrum scam, received a hero’s welcome in Chennai a few weeks ago. The ecstatic crowds burst firecrackers for a man who was largely responsible for his party's defeat in Tamil Nadu’s election, demolishing India’s image in the eyes of the world, and bringing the government of India to its knees. Even bigger celebrations are planned next week when he visits his Nilgiris constituency and his hometown, Perambalur.

The arrest of Jagan Mohan Reddy, MP from Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh, is another reminder of a lesson that Indians have failed to learn so far. And this is that the root cause of corruption lies in the excessive discretionary authority in the hands of politicians and officials. The reforms in 1991 took away some of that discretion but many sectors of the economy are still unreformed.  Thus, scams happen in the dark alleys of unreformed sectors such as land transactions, mining, and government purchases. So, the answer to corruption may well lie in actions of the 1991 variety.

Gurcharan Das
The Man: Gurcharan Das's second career as a writer and public intellectual is more noticed and in some ways far more influential than his first as a professional manager. It spanned 30 years, and across six countries and included a term as CEO of Procter & Gamble India. His writings drew from his experience and also from his wide reading. He tells us that individuals could be immoral but the institution of the market itself is deeply moral.