The shine has come off India’s growth. Most countries would crave a growth rate as high as 5.7 per cent, but this is a setback for a country that recently boasted of growth rates higher than China’s. The slowdown exposes underlying fragilities that no triumphalist talk could conceal. What lessons the government takes from this, and how it responds, will determine the contours of the economy and its growth prospects for a long time.

The call for reforms has not gone unheeded by the government of Narendra Modi. A corporate bankruptcy law was put into effect last year. So was an inflation-targeting framework, giving the central bank a more focused mandate that makes low, stable inflation one of its principal objectives.

Last November, the government unexpectedly withdrew 500 and 1,000-rupee notes. This year, it implemented the goods and services tax, a regime that gets rid of a patchwork of state excise levies.