The Great Dichotomy Of The Growing Indian Economy Haunts Millions

By R. Suryamurthy

India’s economy is supposedly doing remarkably well. Growth remains among the fastest in the world. Stock markets continue to flirt with record highs. Billionaires are multiplying. Airports are expanding. Bullet trains are advancing. Defence exports are reaching new milestones. The nation is speaking confidently about becoming a $10 trillion economy and a developed country by 2047.

Yet somewhere between these grand ambitions and glittering statistics, another India exists. It is the India of shrinking grocery baskets, rising electricity bills, stagnant wages, disappearing job opportunities and relentless economic anxiety.

This India does not feature prominently in government presentations, corporate earnings calls or investor conferences. But it is India that most citizens inhabit.

And for them, the economy feels less like a boom and more like a slow-moving recession. Not a technical recession measured by GDP contractions. A household recession is measured by declining purchasing power. A recession of aspirations. A recession of dignity. A recession in which people are working harder merely to stand still.

The latest diplomatic thaw between the United States and Iran is being hailed as a victory for stability. Markets have responded positively. Oil traders anticipate lower risk premiums. Shipping companies expect fewer disruptions in the Gulf.

But if there is one lesson ordinary Indians have learned over the past few years, it is that global crises arrive quickly while relief arrives slowly. When tensions escalated in West Asia, fuel prices rose. Transportation costs climbed. Fertiliser became more expensive. Food inflation accelerated. Electricity costs increased. Every stage of the supply chain passed costs downward until they finally landed where they always do—on the shoulders of the consumer.

Now that peace appears to be returning, nobody is promising that those costs will fall with equal speed. That asymmetry defines modern economics. Prices rise like rockets and descend like feathers. Profits are privatised. Pain is socialised. The same pattern is visible across sectors.

When commodity prices increase, companies raise prices immediately. When commodity prices fall, they discover fresh reasons to maintain margins. Consumers are expected to understand market realities during difficult times, but rarely receive equivalent consideration when conditions improve.

The burden of adjustment is remarkably one-sided. The consumer absorbs inflation. The worker absorbs productivity pressures. The taxpayer absorbs subsidies. The citizen absorbs uncertainty. Everyone else has mechanisms to hedge risk. The common man has none.

This reality becomes even more uncomfortable when viewed through the lens of climate change. India is entering an era in which the weather itself is becoming a source of economic instability.

For decades, economists treated climate as a background condition. Rain arrived. Temperatures fluctuated. Agriculture adapted. Markets adjusted. That assumption no longer holds.

Heatwaves now arrive with frightening regularity. Monsoons have become increasingly erratic. Floods and droughts often occur within the same season. Reservoir levels, crop yields, electricity demand and food prices are becoming more volatile.

What was once considered an environmental challenge is rapidly becoming an economic one. And once again, the burden falls disproportionately on those least capable of carrying it.

The wealthy experience heat differently. They retreat into climate-controlled homes, offices and vehicles. The poor experience heat physically. The delivery rider crossing a city under a blazing sun experiences climate change differently from the executive tracking temperatures from an air-conditioned office. The construction worker labouring on exposed concrete experiences climate change differently from the investor purchasing shares in cooling-equipment manufacturers.

One person’s inconvenience is another person’s survival challenge. This inequality is becoming one of the defining features of modern India. The country is witnessing extraordinary wealth creation alongside growing economic insecurity. That contradiction is becoming impossible to ignore.

Official statistics may show moderation in inflation. Yet anyone visiting a local market knows that food prices remain stubbornly high. Healthcare costs continue rising. Education expenses keep climbing. Housing has become unaffordable in many urban centres. Electricity consumption required merely to remain comfortable during summer is creating a new category of household expenditure.

Meanwhile, wage growth remains uneven. This is especially true for younger Indians. No demographic should be more optimistic about the future than the youth of a rapidly growing economy.

Instead, many young Indians find themselves trapped between expensive education, uncertain employment and rising living costs. Degrees are multiplying faster than opportunities. Expectations are rising faster than incomes. Qualifications are increasing faster than job creation.

The result is a generation that often appears educated but economically insecure. That insecurity carries consequences extending far beyond economics. A society’s stability ultimately depends not on how wealthy its richest citizens become but on whether ordinary people believe their future will be better than their present.

That belief is becoming harder to sustain. The middle class, once viewed as India’s greatest success story, increasingly finds itself squeezed from both directions. It pays taxes but receives limited subsidies. It earns too much to qualify for assistance yet too little to feel secure.

It is expected to finance healthcare, education, housing, retirement and increasingly climate adaptation from its own resources. Every new shock—whether geopolitical, climatic or economic—extracts another layer of savings. For many families, financial planning has been replaced by financial firefighting.

The deeper problem is that policymakers continue to treat these crises as isolated events. Inflation is discussed separately from climate. Climate is discussed separately from employment. Employment is discussed separately from energy. Energy is discussed separately from geopolitics. In reality, they have become inseparable.

A conflict in the Gulf affects fuel costs. Fuel costs affect transportation. Transportation affects food prices. Food prices affect inflation. Inflation affects household consumption. Consumption affects growth. Growth affects employment. Employment affects social stability. Everything is connected. Yet policy frameworks often remain fragmented.

India’s greatest challenge in the coming decade may not be achieving rapid growth. It may be ensuring that growth remains meaningful for ordinary citizens. Economic success cannot be measured solely by aggregate indicators.

GDP does not reveal whether families are reducing protein consumption. Stock indices do not reveal whether young graduates are finding stable jobs. Corporate earnings do not reveal whether households can afford air-conditioning during increasingly dangerous summers.

National wealth does not automatically translate into household security. The distinction matters. Because citizens do not experience economies in aggregate. They experience them individually. Through salaries. Through bills. Through rents. Through school fees. Through grocery purchases. Through fuel receipts. Through medical expenses. Through the constant calculation of whether the next month will be manageable.

The danger facing India is not economic collapse. The danger is something more subtle. A gradual normalisation of insecurity. A society in which citizens become accustomed to paying more for less. A society where every external shock is accepted as inevitable. A society where resilience becomes a euphemism for endurance. That is not resilience. That is resignation.

The forthcoming Iran-US agreement may lower tensions. The monsoon may eventually recover. Inflation may moderate. Markets may celebrate. But unless those improvements translate into tangible relief for households, the underlying discontent will remain.

Because ultimately, nations are not judged by the comfort of their elites, the optimism of their investors or the ambitions of their policymakers. They are judged by whether ordinary people can live with dignity, security and hope.

And today, despite all the triumphalism surrounding India’s rise, millions of Indians are asking a simple question that remains unanswered: If the economy is doing so well, why does everyday life feel so difficult? (IPA Service)