Ex facie it is shocking and a severe indictment of free market capitalism. A thin upper crust of 1 percent wealthiest Indians cornered 22.6 percent of national income in 2022. Income inequality was never so great in the good ole days. In 1951, the top 1 percent bagged 11.5; in 1980, the heyday of neta-babu socialism, the top 1 percent appropriated only 6 percent of national income. This is the research finding of the Data Team of The Hindu, the much lauded daily (estb.1878) published from Chennai and presided over by Cadillac communist N. Ram, whose intent is to show the pivotal liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 and thereafter in bad light.

But while the Hindu Data Team’s report (March 21) drawn (without attribution) from a report of the Paris-based World Inequality Lab headed by Thomas Picketty, which also highlights that India’s top 10 percent not only corners 57 percent of national income, but also 40 percent of national wealth, is a damning indictment of its richest citizens, actually it is proof that India’s steel frame bureaucracy is alive and kicking. The post-liberalisation neta-babu brotherhood hasn’t substantially facilitated ease of doing business for millions of aspirational entrepreneurs who continue to be bound in red tape and complex procedures and denied upward mobility. Rising income and wealth inequality is not because the rich and wealthy are wicked monopolists, but that the neta-babu brotherhood with its socialist era mindset continues to stymie the growth of millions of MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) entrepreneurs by refusing to bin thousands of useless rules, regulations and complex procedures of the socialist era.

India’s rich and wealthy have made it to the top by enduring the insolence of office, law’s delay, extortion and patient endurance of the humiliations heaped upon them or their progenitors. Therefore, they perhaps deserve to enjoy their wealth. To prosper, India needs 10,000 Ambanis and Adanis. Cribbing commies who can’t lead or follow should get out of the way.

Also read: Saving capitalism from Indian capitalists