All this makes for an uneasy equilibrium. When people are forced to work and live in the most primitive conditions, when disgruntled and unemployed youth are caught in forces far more powerful that they can even comprehend, when the promise of education remains unfulfilled, when the political environment is extractive, indifferent and sometimes violently hostile, it cannot but lead to an ending of options and a closure of minds; a ghettoisation that leads inevitably to a deeper ghettoisation.

The tragedy of the September 8 blasts in this town served to uncover the greater tragedy of Malegaon, a town that Maharashtra — and India — remembers only in times of blasts and riots. Securing Malegaon, and indeed every potential site of targeted terror, would need more than security personnel and the identification of the criminals behind Friday’s blasts. It also demands securing the lives of ordinary people.