Pottal Muchanthi Chenthi

Every once in a while, celebrations keep happening about how our government has eradicated poverty. I used to argue with data and facts why that is not so. Now I’ve even stopped doing that. If policymakers and their supporters feel there is no poverty in India, it is nothing but delusional. Acknowledging a problem is the first step towards resolving it. When the problem itself is refused to be seen, where is the question of resolution?

A team of experts free from political bias needs to travel across India to understand what our poverty actually looks like on the ground. Headline numbers must be examined carefully. I once did this exercise for Shamika Ravi. Last year, the Indus Valley report observed that around 80% of Indians have negligible or zero ability to spend on discretionary goods. Rama Bijapurkar is widely regarded as one of the most reliable experts on Indian consumption. Her consumer segmentation: L5 (Affluent): Annual household spend of ₹11.24 lakh+, covering just 25 million people L4 (Resilient): ₹5.4 to 7 lakh, covering 71 million people L3 (Real Middle): ₹3.8 to 5.4 lakh, covering 200 million people L2 (Strained Mass): ₹2.2 to 3.8 lakh, covering 432 million people L1 (Vulnerables): ₹1.1 to 2.2 lakh, covering a massive 707 million people These figures refer to household expenditure, not individual spending. Taken together, L1 and L2 account for nearly 80% of India’s population. For them, everyday life is a constant struggle. They are living on the edge. The others are not living in luxury, but the scale of vulnerability at the bottom is stark. 80% of the country is just surviving and that too with great difficulty. Over the years I have shared extensive data on income, expenditure, wealth and poverty. We see only what we want to see. We simply refuse to face reality.