The Iniquity of India's Inequality

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Income inequality in India has hit its highest level in 92 years. New figures from Credit Suisse suggest the wealthy elite of India, its richest 1%, now own 58.4% of the wealth. This makes India the second-most unequal country in the world.

In the early 1980s, the top 1% of earners in India captured 6% of total income. Today it stands at 22%.

Growth in India has accounted for around 10% of the world’s economic activity since 2005 – it has averaged a GDP growth rate of 6.3% over the same period – yet the average Indian remains poor, with average income at $4.90 per day, and median income at $3.55 per day.

26% of India’s rural population lives below the poverty line, compared to 13.7% in urban areas.

Access to basic services in rural areas is limited, as electricity and water sources are harder to come by, and sanitation rates (households with a toilet) are three times lower than in urban places. 
Additionally, jobs in villages are often informal and/or low paid. 67% of Indians live in rural areas. 

India currently only spends 3% of GDP on education and 1.1% on health, whereas South Africa spends more than twice as much on both.

India’s secondary school enrolment rate is just 69%, and educational attainment is even worse in rural areas, where half of students have dropped out of school by the age of 14.

Transparency International, a multinational anti-corruption watchdog, recently ranked India as the most corrupt country in Asia. It cites that in five public services – schools, hospitals, ID documents, police, and utility services – more than half of respondents have had been forced to pay a bribe. The general bribery rate stands at 69%, surpassing that of Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar.