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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Wealth concentrated in the top 1 percent of India’s population is at a six-decade high and the percentage of income sources exceeds that of countries such as Brazil and the United States, according to the World Inequality Lab think tank. .
Since India, which gained independence from Britain in 1947, opened its markets to investment in 1992, the number of billionaires has increased.
“The ‘billionaire Raj’ led by the Indian bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj led by colonialist forces,” the authors argue.
At the end of 2023, India’s richest citizens owned 40. 1% of the country’s wealth, the highest since 1961, and their share of the total source of income was 22. 6%, the highest since 1922, according to the study, whose four authors include Nitin Kumar Bharti. and Thomas Piketty.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected with a mandate for economic progress and reforms.
Critics say his last two terms have been characterized by a widening gap between the rich and poor in rural areas, as India’s economy grew by 8. 4%, its fastest pace in a year and a half, in the last three months of 2023.
India’s main opposition Congress, the Congress, has raised the issue of the Modi government’s closeness to billionaires in demonstrations ahead of national elections that begin on April 16.
The Global Inequality Lab said the points added that lack of education has left others in low-paying jobs and slowed the expansion of the poorest 50 percent and middle 40 percent of Indians.
Data from the Forbes billionaires ranking shows that the number of Indians with net incomes above $1 billion has increased from one in 1991 to 162 in 2022.
The two richest men in Asia, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries and Gautam Adani of the Adani Group, are Indians.
The richest 10,000 Americans among India’s 92 million adults have an average wealth of 22. 6 billion rupees ($271. 91 million), 16,763 times the country’s average, while the richest 1% own an average wealth of 54 million.
In December, the Indian government’s top economic adviser said subsidized grain distribution, spending on education and health, and direct cash transfers through a rural employment program had helped distribute revenue sources more equitably.
($1 = 83. 1148 Indian rupees)
(Reporting via Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Barbara Lewis)