If a crime can capture the temper of the times, then nothing symbolizes India's rough-and-ready brand of capitalism better than a recent fratricidal double murder outside New Delhi. A shootout November 17 involving heavily armed guards left 55-year-old liquor baron Gurdeep Singh "Ponty" Chadha and his younger brother dead. The alleged flashpoint: a dispute over a multimillion dollar farmhouse in a tony neighborhood favored by some of India's wealthiest politicians and businessmen.

For...