Indian Middle Class Fell Off the Global Map

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-18/why-india-fel...

Meanwhile, the opportunities for men who came to cities were limited by the reach of their caste, a birth-based social identity unique to South Asia. Although upward mobility at the lower end of the hierarchy has improved somewhat in recent years, it’s still severely restricted. State jobs, where historically discriminated groups could get the benefit of affirmative action, have become rare. Like their fathers before them, a majority of male workers remain trapped in low-productivity, low-income occupations, such as guards, chauffeurs, gardeners, and handymen.

Most of these findings are drawn from the State of Working India 2023 report by Amit Basole and his team at the Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University. (A new edition is expected in 2026.) As the economists have argued, India missed out on the expected transfer of labor from subsistence-oriented occupations to profit-led activity. Three out of four nonfarm workers are stuck in the informal sector.

A stunted middle class may be a direct result of this extreme inequality. Folks at the top of the ladder don’t see the teeming masses as a meaningful market, except for utilities, soap, short videos, and personal loans. Meanwhile, those at the bottom of the pyramid lack the education and skills to manufacture things for the wealthy at home and overseas. A rapidly digitizing economy needs young internal migrants for gig work — like deliveries for 10-minute quick commerce. While it’s no stepping stone to a middle-class life, it’s all that there is for the youth: The return on an additional year of schooling is lower than not just China, but also Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Inequality Report.

At the top of society, mobility is limited globally. Many in today’s Chinese elite are descendants of those who had prominent roles during the Communist revolution of 1949. India’s business tycoons are mostly a leftover of the mercantile interests that had thrived under pre-1947 British colonial rule. They’re guided by short-term returns. Instead of replicating their Chinese counterparts’ aggressive investment in technology, their one brilliant idea for scaling up manufacturing is to lobby for relaxed labor laws — so they can extract a 12-hour workday.

The top 1% Indians own 40% of overall personal wealth, but Gen-Z billionaires are bored with business. They would rather park their fortunes in family offices than start new enterprises. In the Soviet-styled planned economy that extended up to the 1980s, their grandparents scrambled for licenses. Nowadays, their parents just fight each other for a favorable government policy and haggle with private-credit firms for refinancing.


An unambitious elite spoiled by finance — plus a working class held back by inadequate education and inequities of caste and gender — are stymying the emergence of a global middle class in India. The social change that can fill the gap is nowhere on the horizon.

Ignis Rex
@Ignis_Rex
India’s Missing Middle: A Society Without Values Cannot Create Prosperity

India’s absence from the global middle-class map is not a statistical anomaly—it is the logical consequence of a society that has never been built on principles, values, or institutions that sustain prosperity.

Bloomberg’s recent analysis rightly points out India’s fading presence in the global middle-income bracket. But the deeper truth is this: India is not merely unequal; it is structurally incapable of producing a middle class.

A Hollow Growth Story

For decades, India has been celebrated as “the next big market.” Economists and investors have projected a rising consumer base, a demographic dividend, and a vibrant democracy. Yet the reality is starkly different. India’s economy is polarized between a tiny elite and a vast underclass. The so-called middle class is a mirage—fragile, precarious, and dependent on patronage rather than merit.

Unlike China, which built factories, infrastructure, and disciplined institutions to lift hundreds of millions into middle-income status, India has relied on slogans, subsidies, and rent-seeking. The result is an economy where luxury malls flourish for the elite, while the majority struggle for subsistence. There is no broad-based demand, no stable middle-income consumer, and no genuine ladder of upward mobility.

Why Inequality Is Entrenched

India’s inequality is not simply economic—it is cultural and institutional.
- Caste and tribalism: Social hierarchies remain rigid. Meritocracy is suffocated by caste privilege, nepotism, and political favoritism.
- Corruption as culture: Rules are bent, contracts ignored, and corruption normalized. In India, dishonesty is not an exception—it is the operating principle.
- Absence of civic values: Societies that sustain a middle class are built on trust, accountability, and respect for law. India has none of these. Institutions are hollow, enforcement is arbitrary, and opportunism is the only ethic.
- Protectionistic policy that punish foreign manufacturers and brands for being successful in the Indian market and dare to compete successfully against local heroes. India normally used tax and custom procedures to harrass these foreign companies.

Why is value and principle important for a society? Without values, inequality becomes entrenched. Without principles, institutions collapse into corruption. And without institutions, there can be no middle class.

The Mirage of Democracy

India’s defenders point to its democracy as a safeguard. But democracy without values is merely populism. Elections are won through caste arithmetic, handouts, and manipulation. Policy is reactive, incoherent, and designed to appease factions rather than build institutions. The middle class, which in other societies acts as a stabilizing force, is too weak to play that role in India. Instead, politics amplifies division and entrenches inequality.

Global Implications

India’s failure to build a middle class has consequences beyond its borders.
- Economic fragility: Without a strong middle-income base, India’s growth story is unsustainable. Domestic demand will remain polarized, vulnerable to shocks, and incapable of driving global markets.
- Geopolitical weakness: India cannot credibly claim to rival China when it lacks the social and economic foundation of a middle class.
- Investor caution: For global capital, India offers opportunities at the top and bottom of the pyramid—but the broad consumer market that sustains long-term investment is missing.

Conclusion

India’s missing middle is not a temporary setback—it is the inevitable outcome of a society that has never embraced values of fairness, merit, or accountability. Until India confronts its cultural and institutional dysfunction, it will remain a deeply unequal society, incapable of producing prosperity for the majority of its people.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-18/why-india-fel...

https://x.com/Ignis_Rex/status/2001987658726396311?s=20

Sushant Singh
@SushantSin
Lunching (Lynching) in India, particularly of young Muslim men, the data is self evident since 2014. Look at the % of IPS officers who consider that mob action, outside the law, is justified. This is what New India is.

https://x.com/SushantSin/status/2002251845637677107?s=20

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AI Overview
The phrase "Lynching in India refuses to die" refers to persistent incidents of mob violence in India, often targeting minorities, despite existing laws and low conviction rates. A recent "Datanomics" report from Business Standard highlights statistics and the lack of comprehensive national legislation.
Key Data Points (2014-2023)
According to the "Datanomics" analysis by Business Standard using data from various sources:
India recorded 189 lynching cases between 2014 and 2023.
These cases represent less than 1% of over 526,000 total incidents of mob violence during the same period.
The data collection on mob lynching by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) was discontinued in 2017 due to the data being deemed "unreliable" as these crimes are not specifically defined in law at the national level.
Legal and Social Context
As of late 2025, only four states in India—Manipur, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Jharkhand—have enacted their own anti-lynching laws.
The Supreme Court of India has previously warned of "mobocracy" and urged the central government to pass a national anti-lynching law, but this has not yet happened.
Many lynchings have been related to rumors spread via social media, such as those concerning child abduction or cow slaughter, with victims often belonging to minority communities.
Critics have accused the Hindu nationalist government of failing to forcefully condemn the violence, while others argue that the narrative is selectively reported to create polarization.
For more details, the original report can be read on the Business Standard website.

https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/datanomics-lynching-pe...