High import prices are India's Achilles heel

With the global growth forecast to remain slow over the next year (or longer), it would be great to see a changed approach from the RBI

- JAMAL MECKLAI

GROWING UP IN a village in UP, Aladdin is uneducated and, in fact, illiterate.

He moved to Mumbai when he was eight and worked as a helper at a street stall and worked his way up and across to where he now works as a driver (for the past 15 years). He has educated his two sons, one of whom is currently in college, and has bought a property in the suburbs, which he has leased out. Smart and hardworking, despite his handicapped upbringing, his is a quintessential Indian success story. Except ...

I was speaking to him the other day and I asked him how things were going and what his plans were. He said things have gotten so expensive over the past few years that he can't, at this point, see any additional horizons he could try and cross.

To my mind, this speaks of the loudest failure of our economic policy. I don't know whether policymakers spend much time talking with—or, indeed, thinking about—the lower middle class, but this is the largest cohort of our population and high prices are their number one problem. It needs to be acknowledged as suchincluding by the prime minister-and constantly managed on a war footing, so Aladdin (and his brothers and sisters) can truly create an Indian dream.