In a report on the Indian economy in lieu of the usual, pre-budget Economic Survey, the finance ministry has outlined the achievements of the Indian economy during the Narendra Modi years and indicated some medium-term projections about economic growth. The report highlights the growth rates of the Indian economy in the last one or two years, claiming that a 7% growth rate is something to be impressed with when seen in the context of the global growth rate of 2%. This claim, however, hides the fact that there was a sharp decline in growth during the pandemic years: hence, the 7% growth has to be viewed against a very low base year figure. Longer averages portray a much more modest rate of growth in the post-Covid years. There is a claim that the Indian economy will become a $7 trillion economy by 2030 (not $5 trillion as promised earlier by the prime minister) and is likely to become the third largest economy in the world in the coming three years. There is also an assertion that India will become an advanced economy by 2047. But the report does not clarify what the qualitative features of a developed Indian economy would be by that time.

Most analysts of India’s economic development would highlight the vital necessity of creating an adequate number of jobs for the country’s rapidly-growing young population. The report claims that overall employment has increased and unemployment has fallen in urban areas. The truth is that agricultural and manufacturing jobs have fallen since Covid and only low-end, service-sector jobs and precariously uncertain employment in the construction sector have increased. Between 2012 and 2018, about 100 million workers left the labour force. After 2018, about 135 million new workers are estimated to have entered the work force. During the same period, only 5 million jobs were created in the formal sector. About 50% of the 135 million workers went to agriculture, remaining underemployed in a segment facing recurrent crises of falling water tables and climate change-induced crop failures. At the moment, about 450 million people of the working-age population are out of the labour force in India. They have given up looking for a job. The employment picture will become grimmer if one factors in labour market disruptions that are likely to take place on account of the spread of Artificial Intelligence and the more discernible aspects of climate change. Being proud of the economy’s achievements is one thing; presenting half-truths — a terribly unwise thing to do — is quite another.