Engaging India is an online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world. Engaging India appears exclusively on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India, and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.

Within the first couple weeks of arriving in India, I asked an Indian friend whether corruption was really as widespread as I had heard. To illustrate how common corruption is, he told me: ”A bad man isn’t someone who asks for a bribe. It’s someone who takes the bribe but doesn’t do what you paid him to do.”