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Indians have come to expect infallibility from Reliance. The Bombay-based conglomerate, which in its last financial year reported more than $22 billion in annual revenues (3.5% of India's GDP) from sectors as diverse as oil refining, power generation and mobile-phone service, is the most successful private enterprise in India's history. Founded in 1958 by the late Dhirubhai Ambani, the group has prospered and expanded through changes of government, seismic shifts in public policy and the opening of India's economy. Rivals sometimes complain about Reliance's access to politicians and its aggressive business tactics, but ordinary citizens give the conglomerate their vote of approval: more than 3.1 million Indians own shares in Reliance companies, which have a combined market capitalization of more than $20 billion. Yet it has taken just one extraordinary week—during which a long-simmering battle for control of the conglomerate burst into the open—to strip Reliance of the sheen of invincibility it acquired over four decades.

The problems started with two words. On Nov. 19, India's newspapers carried front-page reports that Mukesh Ambani, the 47-year-old son of Dhirubhai and the chairman of Reliance Industries, the group's flagship petrochemicals and oil venture, had admitted to "ownership issues" at the company, which he and younger brother Anil, the vice chairman, had been running since their father's death in July 2002. For four days speculation ran amok in the Indian press that the brothers had started sparring over control of Reliance. On Nov. 22, Mukesh issued a statement saying that his words had been "torn out of context" and claimed that all "ownership issues" at Reliance had been settled by Dhirubhai before his death. The next day, M.L. Bhakta, a director at Reliance Industries for 27 years, resigned. Bhakta said he was getting old and his resignation had nothing to do with the controversy. But he acknowledged to a news wire that there was a "misunderstanding" between the brothers "and we are working to clear it." On Nov. 25, six directors at Reliance Energy, a company headed by Anil Ambani, resigned without offering a reason. Shares of Reliance Energy fell 5.8% on Nov. 25 while Reliance Industries stock dipped 2.2%. Word that something seemed amiss had by then reached the company's large group of foreign investors. The events at Reliance "have come as quite a surprise to people outside India," says Praveen Martis, an energy analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an Edinburgh-based consultant. "Now they will want to look more closely at this company."

Details of the dispute remained sketchy at the week's end. A number of India's family-run companies have seen nasty internal squabbles. So there have always been some in Bombay's financial circles who thought it inevitable that Reliance, too, would one day be riven. Mukesh and Anil—who are together worth $6 billion and whose families live together in an exclusive downtown-Bombay residential tower called Sea Wind—appear to be opposites in temperament. Mukesh, the cerebral strategist, dodges the limelight, concentrating on passions such as vegetarian food, watching Hindi movies and raising a family. Anil, two years younger, married a former film actress, keeps fit by jogging in public and is often seen with socialites and politicians. Earlier this year, he became a member of India's upper house of Parliament.

Yet for all their differences, in the two years following the patriarch's death, there was no outward sign of disharmony between the brothers. Reliance aggressively branched out of its core industrial sectors into telecommunications, oil exploration and power generation. As co-managing directors at Reliance Industries, Anil handled finance while Mukesh oversaw strategic projects. The pair found a safe vent for sibling rivalry by creating distinct fiefdoms among Reliance's smaller subsidiaries. Under Mukesh, Reliance entered the highly competitive mobile-phone market and quickly garnered a subscriber base of more than 7 million, becoming the country's largest wireless carrier. Anil directed the group's push into power generation. Investors, both in India and abroad, were impressed by the conglomerate's results. "Reliance's performance spoke for itself," says Martis. In the six months from April to September this year, revenues at Reliance Industries, the parent, rose 24% compared with the same period last year; profits grew 35%.

Behind the scenes, however, the fissures inside Reliance were deepening. Internal company e-mails seen by TIME and excerpted in Indian newspapers suggest that relations between the brothers have been deteriorating rapidly since July, when Anil complained to Mukesh that the powers of the chairman and the managing directors at Reliance Industries had been redefined without his approval. "I sincerely hope ... we will revert to our earlier system of consultations/discussions/mutual consent," Anil wrote. Three months later, the tone of his missives had become more strident. On Oct. 25, Anil shot off a formal letter to Mukesh complaining that he had received no reply to his July e-mail and expressing "deep concern at this unhappy turn of events, and the sad reflection it represents of how we are seeking to preserve, and carry forward the legacy ... of our beloved founder Chairman, Dhirubhai Ambani." A senior Reliance official close to Mukesh insists that he was not trying to extend his powers at Anil's expense but merely emphasizing that the chairman ran Reliance. Although the crux of the dispute appears to be Anil's growing conviction that he was being sidelined by his brother, conflict was exacerbated by turf wars. An Anil supporter says that Reliance Energy, the company headed by Anil, was promised that by 2006 it would receive natural gas from Reliance Industries that it needed to run a new power plant; this source says the promised delivery of gas was then delayed to 2008. A Reliance spokesman close to Mukesh says that the supply of gas to Reliance Energy merely ran into procedural delays.

Millions of Reliance investors now want to know when the dispute will be resolved and whether Reliance will survive in one piece. On Nov. 25, speaking to reporters outside Reliance headquarters, Anil avoided referring to the dispute explicitly but said, "There are long hours, and there are going to be long days." The power-sharing agreement that worked for the past two years may now be irretrievably broken. Yet the brothers have every incentive to sit down and talk. "It's to the advantage of both to make sure that this does not drag on," says Martis. He points out that Reliance is in the midst of a series of ambitious ventures, such as opening up new power plants, the future of which might be jeopardized if the current wrangle goes on. Carving up the conglomerate between the brothers is one option, although Reliance's complex ownership structure—the company is controlled by the Ambanis through a web of holding companies—would not make such a division easy. Supporters of the two brothers also disagree about who controls these holding companies—Mukesh, as the chairman of Reliance Industries, or the entire Ambani family. A less painful option than the division of the whole company might be for Anil to be offered a substantial cash settlement and control of some of the smaller companies, in return for his departure from the flagship Reliance Industries.

After all the drama, Reliance remains a professionally managed company, and insiders insist that the controversy won't disrupt its day-to-day business. But the old polish has gone, and millions of ordinary Indians may never again feel that the Ambanis are the one Indian business family that never makes a mistake.

• Aravind Adiga | New Delhi
• Will a dispute between the Ambani brothers lead to the breakup of Reliance?