Modi’s India more unequal than ever |
If there were an Olympic event for inequality, India would be a strong contender for gold. The World Inequality Report (WIR) 2026, published by the World Inequality Lab, confirms that India ranks among the countries with the highest concentration of income and wealth in the world. Its long-term analysis shows that India’s growth has disproportionately benefited a tiny elite, giving rise to what the authors describe as the era of the ‘Billionaire Raj’.
Economist Jean Dreze points out that the richest Indians are among the most pampered in the world today. They pay proportionately the lowest income tax, and pay neither wealth nor inheritance tax. The pandemic didn’t loosen their purse-strings, either.
The report offers striking evidence of India being one of the most unequal countries in the world. By 2022–23, the disparities between the ultra-rich and the rest had exceeded even the yawning disparities seen during the colonial period.
Income distribution figures are particularly stark: ‘The top 10 per cent of learners account for nearly 58 per cent of national income, while the bottom half of the population receives just about 15 per cent. Wealth inequality is even greater, with the richest 10 per cent holding around 65 per of total wealth and the top 1 per cent about 40 per cent.’
The report also highlights persistent gender disparities. At 15.7 per cent, female labour force participation remains far below the global average of 49 per cent and has shown almost no improvement between 2014 and 2024. Globally, women receive only about a quarter of total labour income, and this structural imbalance is far more severe in India.
According to the report, the extreme inequality we are seeing today is not accidental but the outcome of deliberate policy choices. In the decades following independence, up to the early 1980s, India had managed to keep income and wealth gaps within limits.
This relative containment was rooted in the political and economic framework of the post-Independence period, which broadly followed a socialist orientation. Measures such as the nationalisation of key sectors and sharply progressive taxation played a central role. At its peak, the top marginal tax rate reached 97.5 per cent in 1973, significantly restricting wealth accumulation at the top and likely........