BILLIONAIRE RAJ 2.0

FOCUS INEQUALITY

- Malayaranjan Sahoo

Seventy-seven years after Independence, India finds itself battling a disturbing transformation. While the country has made remarkable economic strides, it is increasingly clear that the gains have not been distributed equally. A landmark study released by the World Inequality Lab in March 2024—“Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj”—lays bare the uncomfortable truth: India is now among the most unequal countries in the world, with the top 1 per cent controlling an outsized share of both income and wealth.

In 2022-23, the top 1 per cent of Indians earned 22.6 per cent of the national income—surpassing their share during the colonial interwar period when the figure stood at around 21 per cent. Their share of national wealth is even more staggering: 40.1 per cent, the highest ever recorded since modern data collection began in 1961. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 per cent of India’s population holds a mere 6.1 per cent of the nation’s wealth and just 13.1 per cent of income. The top 10,000 richest Indians—about 0.001 per cent of the adult population—earn ₹48 crore annually on average, nearly 2,000 times more than the national average of ₹2.3 lakh.

These numbers tell a clear story: while India celebrates its economic growth, a large portion of that prosperity has been siphoned upwards to a narrow economic elite.

From socialist dream to super-rich reality

India’s early decades after Independence were marked by a steady decline in inequality. Land reforms, nationalization, and high marginal tax rates—up to 97.5 per cent in the 1970s—led to a more equitable distribution of income. In 1982, the top 1 per cent share of income had fallen to 6.1 per cent, and the top 10 per cent earned just 30 per cent of national income.