India’s economic engine is slowing and screeching, and the ones hurting the most are the vast middle classes. Why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) doesn’t particularly worry about this, or why the party can still take them for granted, is something we will return to in a bit. First, the larger crisis.

It isn’t merely the function of one bad quarter. The central government’s statistical organisation, the Reserve Bank of India, and global organisations have all scaled down this year’s growth estimate to around 6.5 per cent.

There’s little evidence that a turnaround is on the horizon. Economics is complex