Srinagar, Sept. 8 -- Abhishek Anand, Josh Felman and Arvind Subramanian ask how India could have grown at 7.8 per cent in a quarter marked by an energy shock. It is a fair question. It also has an answer, and that answer has been in plain sight for some years.

Begin with the timing. The quarter runs from April to June 2026. The conflict between Iran and the United States and Israel peaked just before it. Oil prices jumped, and India felt it. The sharpest disruption, though, fell in March and the first days of April. By May, the pressure had eased. By June, it had largely passed. A few difficult weeks at the start of a three-month quarter do not turn the quarter's number into fiction.

The evidence from those months points one way. Auto s...