India’s wealth story is increasingly told through a confusing set of headlines. On the one hand, the country is adding new dollar-millionaires at a brisk pace. On the other, the average Indian adult is not materially better off than a few years ago. This is not a statistical contradiction. It is a warning that inequality has moved from the margins to the centre of India’s economic narrative. Recent global wealth data places India among the world’s most unequal societies, with wealth concentration now comparable to that of far richer economies.

The comparison is unsettling not because it flatters India, but because inequality in several advanced economies has eased in recent years while it has worsened here. That divergence suggests outcomes are shaped less by inevitability and more by policy design. The most revealing insight lies in the divergence between average and median wealth. Average wealth per adult has declined in real terms,........

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