If the BJP had any real feelings for India, if it was a truly nationalistic party, it would have backed down even at this late stage and supported the prime minister in his efforts to ensure that we do not yet again fail to do what is ‘manifestly obvious’.

It will not, though, and India will probably miss the bus again because our political class let us down yet again. So next time if one of you see me at an airport and come up to ask why I am so mean about our politicians, please remember it is only because I feel that they are the only class of Indians who consistently let us down. If you read this column regularly, you know that I have a deep contempt for Indian bureaucrats, but even they are changing. Sometimes because they are younger, wiser and less chippy and sometimes because their offspring, educated in the finest universities of the western world, force them to wake up and smell the coffee.

With the political class, even this does not happen, because all that the foreign-educated children of our politicians seem to want is Daddyji or Mummyji’s seat in Parliament. So forgive me if I continue to be mean about our political class.