Glare of a Gilded Age
" Dasgupta has just tried to persuade us that Delhi turned out very differently from New York and Paris because of its particular history and culture, yet now he forecasts that New York and Paris will be doomed to Delhi’s fate, ignoring the particular histories and cultures of those two cities." The financial heart of India has long been Mumbai, but it is Delhi, increasingly, that seems to be driven by money, galvanized by it, besotted with it. Delhi is India’s capital. It is where the nation’s networks of crony capitalism converge, where money seeks license to earn more money. Delhi talks to itself about money — about what money can buy, about the cabinet minister pocketing kickbacks, about the suburban swatch of land that a lawyer’s untaxed, all-cash fee has purchased and, in near-reverential tones, about the ingenious and illegal ways more money can be made. This last subject, in particular, exercises the city’s soul enormously. Delhi is flatulent with greed. When Ran...