While wealth has been rising in India, not everyone has shared in this growth. There is still considerable wealth poverty, says Credit Suisse’s India wealth report
The richest 10% of Indians own 77.4% of the country’s wealth, says Credit Suisse in their 2018 Global Wealth Report. The bottom 60%, the majority of the population, own 4.7%. The richest 1% own 51.5% (chart 1 above). And it’s not some bleeding-heart NGO that’s arrived at these figures, but a blue-blooded Swiss bank.
The exact numbers are not important. In the 2016 Credit Suisse report, the share of the richest 1% was higher and in 2017 it was lower. Estimating wealth is not quantum physics and year-to-year changes in wealth shares are dependent upon asset prices and exchange rates. What is remarkable is that, in a democracy, the top 1% has been able to keep its share very high, while the majority meekly accept destitution.
Such a high level of disparity raises several questions, not the least of which is the extent to which it subverts democracy. While everybody talks about development these days, a legitimate question from the Credit Suisse data is: whose development are we talking about? Is it development for the top 1%, or for the top 10%, or the poorest 60%?
The cornering of the fruits of development by the wealthy and the stark disparity in wealth shares provide fuel for social unrest and rising crime. It increases disaffection and threatens to tear apart the fabric of the nation—it puts enormous strain on nation-building if the share of the majority in the nation’s wealth is less than 5%.
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