ndia has launched a massive campaign to brand itself as the shining star of the global economy. The West, which has been struggling to compete with China, found an opportunity to use India as a bargaining chip in its dealings with China. They also identified the Indian population as a potential market to help them compete with China. Thus, they positioned the Indian economy as the poster boy and started to support the Indian narrative. They are promoting India as the new China of Asia or a competitor to China. They cite a high growth rate as evidence and attempt to compare it with the Chinese decade of growth. The Indian branding campaign and the accompanying Western support have compelled people to believe in its status as a shining star.
However, rational minds and sane voices have been raising concerns about data manipulation, especially data on GDP growth, Jobs, etc. They also questioned the Indian comparison with China. Thus, it is necessary to decode data to find the truth, whether tall claims of a shining star and the comparison between China and India can stand the ground or not.
Let’s start with the GDP growth rate. Since the UPA government, India has been drumming up GDP growth and presenting itself as an economy of the future. However, the successive Indian government ignored the concerns of experts, independent analysts, and concerned politicians about data management, GDP health, and growth rate calculation. Many believe that Indian calculations have serious flaws in determining the GDP growth rate.
Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India, highlighted that the estimation of 7.8 percent during the first quarter of FY24 was incorrect; it should be between 6 and 6.5 percent. Dr. Arun Kumar, retired professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, believed that discrepancies in data have risen very sharply to 2.8 percent, which is worrisome. He was curious to find out how the share of some indicators is falling without showing a corresponding increase in others. Pronab Sen and Dr. Arun Kumar seem very moderate voices compared to other critics. For example, Akash Modi was harsh and considered the government estimates fake. He was convinced that the GDP growth rate was around 4.5 percent. He also raised questions about the quality of GDP and distribution.
The discrepancies in GDP growth rate calculations and data manipulation are so severe that the UPA (Manmohan Singh-led) and NDA (Modi-led) openly blame each other. They are engaged in a tug-of-war, which intensified when the NDA government downgraded GDP growth figures from the UPA era after rebasing the economy to 2011-2012. The new figures indicated that the average growth rate was 6.82 percent, not 7.75 percent, during FY06-FY12. The Modi government even claimed that the growth rate of 10.3 percent presented by the UPA government in 2010 was fake, revising it down by 1 percent. The Congress party accused the NDA government of fudging data to falsely portray that the NDA is performing better, with an average growth rate of 7.35 percent, which is untrue. Congress’s argument gained traction after a study by Arvind Subramanian, the former chief economic advisor of the NDA government, highlighted in his published by Harvard Center for International Development that the average GDP growth was 4.5 percent (NDA claimed 7 percent) and that the government inflated it by 2.5 percent between the financial years 2011-12 and 2016-17.
The tug-of-war was further complicated when the NDA withheld the employment survey results following a leaked government report. The leaked report indicated that unemployment rose to 6.1 percent in 2017, compared to 2.2 percent in 2012. Consequently, the NDA retained the survey results because the results did not support the government’s claim of a high growth rate. Currently, the Indian government is disputing the ILO report regarding employment. The reports reveal that youth constitute 83 percent of the unemployed labor force, and the proportion of young people with secondary or higher education has surged from 35.2 percent in 2000 to 65.7 percent in 2022 among the total unemployed youth.
Data segregation further reveals that employment in the agriculture sector is rising. The Economic Survey of India reported that employment in the agriculture sector surged from 44.1 percent in 2017-18 to 46.1 percent in 2023-24. It is surprising to note that the share of agriculture in GDP is declining, yet employment is increasing. Why is agriculture still the largest employer if all other sectors are growing? These statistics challenge the government’s assertions of a high growth rate and the economy’s performance.
Moreover, India is manipulating the exchange rate. It has significantly overvalued the Indian rupee. Conservative estimates suggest that one US dollar should equal 108 Indian rupees, yet India maintains it at 84.
The comparison with China is another aspect of India’s booming branding. However, rational minds and voices are not prepared to accept comparisons between India and China or the logic behind such comparisons. China and India are entirely different, except for their comparable population numbers. They pursue divergent political, governance, and economic models. Over time, China has developed its indigenous system of democracy, the Whole Process People’s Democracy. This system thrives on the foundations of socialist values, inclusiveness, and respect for humanity and the planet. China implements a people-centric governance and economic system that places people and their prosperity at the center while promoting societal welfare. Moreover, China is a leader in innovation and technology development, earning the title of the world’s laboratory.
On the contrary, India is pursuing a blend of religious extremism and Western democracy. It thrives on the division of society, which is divided into multiple lines of religion, castes within religion, ethnicities, regions, tribes, etc. Governance is exclusive. The liberal system of governance further complicates the situation, as it promotes individualism. The Indian economy is still struggling to become industrialized, which will take a long time.
On the other hand, India’s economic system promotes inequality, which has accelerated during the current regime. It has been reported that the top 1 percent accounts for 22.1 percent of income and 40.1 percent of national wealth. Moreover, after liberalization, India has seen a surge in billionaires, increasing from one billionaire in 1991 to 284 billionaires in 2025. These billionaires hold wealth equivalent to 1/3 of GDP. Therefore, the Indian economy is being called a billionaire economy.
In conclusion, from the above discussion, we can draw two conclusions. First, Indian political parties, former advisors, and researchers believe data manipulation is ongoing. There is a question: if the GDP data is incorrect or manipulated, then what about the poverty number and other data? For example, UPA claimed it lifted 140 million people out of poverty. The NDA government claims it lifted 250 million people from poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. Can we believe it? It is hard to believe, especially when the NDA government’s chief economic advisor, Arvind Subramanian, differs from the government’s estimation of the GDP growth rate. Moreover, food insecurity is considered the worst indicator of measuring poverty, and India provides food to 800 million people.
Second, there is no comparison between China and India. China is an advanced economy with a rapidly growing consumer market and zero poverty. In contrast, India is a struggling economy plagued with poverty, food insecurity (the government provides food to 800 million people), and lower consumption.
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