For many attending the Delhi Auto Show, Thursday’s chaotic launch of Tata Motors’ “one-lakh car”, billed as the world’s cheapest, was a foretaste of the anarchy to hit Indian roads. A miscalculation of the number of delegates and media people wanting to witness automotive history in the making resulted in a dangerously overcrowded venue and the type of scrum typically found at the subcontinent’s cricket stadiums.

“This is terrible,” groaned Kazuya Osakada, a mask-wearing journalist from Japanese public television, as he waited for Ratan Tata, the chairman, to speak at a press conference. “No organisation at all.”