NEW DELHI — There was an honorable reason why many Indians followed the string of mishaps at the London Olympics with glee. Such things usually happen only at home.

Days before the start of the London Games, the private firm that was contracted to provide security guards conceded that it did not have the required staff. Then, athletes who arrived at Heathrow Airport took hours to reach the Olympic Village because their bus drivers got lost in the streets of London. The North Korean women’s soccer team refused to start play after it was introduced on the giant screen in the stadium alongside the South Korean flag. And, in the backdrop of a number of sporting events, there was the gleam of plastic because thousands of seats were going empty.

In the weeks that preceded the Commonwealth Games in 2010, which took place in Delhi, Indian sports administrators were accused of taking kickbacks for awarding contracts, stadiums were still not ready, a hastily built footbridge to a venue collapsed, part of the roof of the wrestling stadium fell, and the chief executive officer of the Commonwealth Games federation, Mike Hooper, said the athletes’ village was so filthy that it was not fit for humans. A hurt Indian official replied that the athletes’ village was clean, it was just that Indians and white people had different hygiene standards. Mr. Hooper argued that hygiene “has no nationality.”

The British and the Indians are too proud to let foreigners whip them, but if they are given a whip, they do a good job on themselves. Still, there is a crucial difference in the ways the two countries have reacted to their national embarrassments. Despite the outrage over its own failings, Britain appeared to possess an understated confidence in itself, which is more profound than the mere swagger of national pride.