MUMBAI, India — For much of the last month, India has been gripped by a raging public debate about how to tackle corruption, which is seen by many here as the country’s most important challenge. But a slowing economy may soon overtake corruption as a more pressing problem.

On Thursday, for instance, as the Indian government negotiated with a fasting anticorruption crusader, the country’s central bank issued a blunt warning: economic growth could soon fall below 8 percent.

Most countries would be thrilled to have a growth rate of more than 7 percent, but for India, which strode at a 9 percent pace before the financial crisis of 2008 and hit 8.5 percent last year, it would be a significant letdown. Slower growth would mean fewer Indians climbing out of poverty and could help spur greater social unrest.

And it would pose yet another challenge to the global economy, which is increasingly depending on emerging markets like India and China to make up for stagnation in the West.