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India Stands Out as “Poor and Very Unequal Country”: Report

The BJP in its ten years in power has done little about a targeted action plan to reduce inequality and poverty in the country, according to the World Inequality Report 2022. Read More

Sunday March 3, 2024 8:22 PM , Syed Ali Mujtaba

Every Indian knows that the ten years of BJP rule have created a religious polarization in Indian society, little they know is that the BJP rule has made India stand out as a “poor and very unequal country in the world.

According to the World Inequality Report 2022, the affluent elite of India, which is about the top 10 percent of the population, holds about 57 percent of the total national income. In contrast, the bottom 50 percent’s share is just 13 percent in 2021, says the report.

Authored by economist and co-director of the World Inequality Lab, Lucas Chancel, along with economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman say:

“If India is excluded from the global analysis, then the global bottom 50 percent income share has slightly increased in 2020” but because of India, the Inequality index has been pulled down.

According to the report, India’s middle class is relatively poor with an average wealth of only Rs 7, 23,930 or 29.5 percent of the total national income. Whereas the top 10 percent own 65 percent average wealth is Rs 63, 54,070. The average wealth of 33 per cent is Rs 3, 24, 49,360.

The average annual national income of the Indian adult is Rs 2, 04,200 in 2021. The bottom 50 percent is Rs 53,610. In contrast, the top 10 percent wealth is over 20 times more and is pegged at 11, 66,520, says the report.

The average household wealth in India is Rs 9, 83,010, with the bottom 50 percent owning almost nothing, with an average wealth of 6 percent of the total Rs 66,280.

The quality of inequality data released by the Indian government has seriously deteriorated, says the report stating that making it particularly difficult to assess recent inequality changes in India.

As per the recent Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) prepared by Niti Aayog, one in every four people in India is multi-dimensionally poor. Bihar has the highest proportion of poor people (51.91 percent) of the state’s population) who are multi-dimensionally poor, followed by Jharkhand at 42.16 percent and Uttar Pradesh at 37.79 percent.

The report has suggested levying a modest progressive wealth tax on multimillionaires.

“Given the large volume of wealth concentration, modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments. The income generated could be reinvested in education, health, and the ecological transition,” it says.

The report also notes that the gap between the average incomes of the top 10 percent and the bottom 50 percent of individuals within the country has almost doubled. “This sharp rise in within-country inequalities has meant that despite economic catch-up and strong growth in the emerging trends, India remains unequal today,” the report states.

Since the mid-1990s, deregulation and liberalization policies have led to one of the most extreme increases in income and wealth inequality in India.

While the top 1 percent has largely benefited from economic reforms, growth among low and middle-income groups shows poverty persists in the state.

What is inferred from the inequality report is that the BJP at one point in time has given the slogan ‘Make in India' to make India “Atmnirbhar.” However, the global inequality index suggests that the BJP has made little effort to improve the lot of the people.

It seems that the BJP has discovered Hindu religious nationalism based on hate Muslim agenda a hit formula to remain in ascendance. The saffron party finds an anti-Muslim diatribe far more rewarding than working on developing an agenda of uplifting the poor and downtrodden segment of society.

The BJP in its ten years in power has done little about a targeted action plan to reduce inequality and poverty in the country. Rather it has been found that keeping Indians poor and sharpening inequality among them is far more beneficial to the party, than to improving their lives in a secular perspective.

The fact remains that the BJP to support crony capitalism has created an economic elite of 10 percent in the country that controls 57 percent of the national wealth. The new kind of wealth formation has helped the BJP stupendously.

This accumulated wealth is used for electoral farming and is taken from the corny capitalist to buy votes from the electorates, purchasing the elected representatives of the legislators and practically democratically doing all un-democratic activity.

The government in return pays back the borrowed wealth in the form of contracts and other benefits. That’s how the BJP juggernaut marches on India whose cumulative outcome is the country remains “poor and unequal among the community of the nations.

[Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com]

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