Limited Planet, Unlimited Ambition

India's economic imagination, GDP growth occupies the status of an unquestioned national obsession.

- TULSI JAYAKUMAR

Every quarterly number is awaited with bated breath. Reports that our GDP grew 7.4 percent year-on-year in the last quarter of 2024-25 were met with predictable celebration. Policymakers remain fixated on the dream of a $5-trillion economy by 2027-28, and a 'developed' India by 2047. Growth, in this narrative, is a panacea—a promise of prosperity, employment and uplift for all.

But, what if the relentless pursuit of higher GDP numbers, without reflecting on what is growing, for whom, and at what cost, risks deepening India's ecological, social, and economic vulnerabilities? And what if India is ignoring a conversation the rest of the world is beginning to take seriously—degrowth?

In parts of Europe and North America, a quiet but significant debate is underway questioning whether high-income economies should deliberately reduce material production and consumption to achieve ecological sustainability, lower inequality, and better quality of life. Scholars like Jason Hickel, Tim Jackson, and Giorgos Kallis have argued that endless GDP growth on a finite planet is not just impossible but undesirable. Climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, and rising inequality have exposed the limits of the growth-at-all-costs model.

At first glance, this debate may seem irrelevant to India—a country still grappling with poverty, underemployment, and unmet basic needs. Our policymakers have long argued that while degrowth might be a necessity for advanced economies, India has neither reached nor caused the ecological and material excesses of the West. Growth, for India, is an ethical imperative to improve lives and expand opportunities.