I have been writing, for many months now, about how middle class disenchantment with the government is growing. The middle class does not have the numbers to be electorally significant, let alone crucial, but it is the original Narendra Modi constituency. Even when the government did not deliver on the promises it made to the middle class, this constituency held firm through two terms.
That, I believe, may now be changing.
And, over the last weeks, I have sensed something that goes deeper, far beyond the anger over inflation and high taxation. There is a real concern that the government is not delivering on the global promise of India itself.
When the BJP came to power a decade ago, the general view among educated Indians was that India was a country whose time had come. This was going to be the Indian century. We were ready to take our place among the great powers of the world.
Not only would we become a global superpower, but we would also become an economic powerhouse. The world would rush to invest in India. Foreigners would do anything for access to the growing Indian market. The rupee would win back the ground it had lost during UPA 2 and rise in value. Granted, not everyone was as optimistic as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who believed that the rupee would reach Rs 40 to the dollar (it was at Rs 59 at the time). We did, however, expect some stability and an end to the slide in value.
Ravi Shankar is often called ‘Double Sri’. But despite his prediction, the rupee has not doubled in value. Instead, it has actually halved from his predicted Rs 40 to the dollar to a figure of Rs 86-87 these days.
There were expectations that the Indian passport would be more respected. Western countries would welcome Indian visitors with smiles. They would be greeted with warmth by immigration officers. The US would regard India as its full and equal partner in the new world order. And so on.
Almost every single one of these hopes has been dashed. It isn’t just the rupee that has plummeted. Even the Indian passport is—according to international ratings—less powerful than it used to be. Western countries don’t welcome Indian visitors as much as they used to a decade ago. It is actually more difficult to get visas to Schengen countries or to the US than it was in 2004.
India’s diminishing global position
As for the US treating us as equal partners, the faith that so many Modi supporters had reposed in US President Donald Trump now seems misplaced. In the early days of the Modi regime, groups such as the Hindu Sena would celebrate Trump’s birthday and cut cakes. Now India seems to hold no special place in Trump’s heart. Earlier this week, he complained about Indian tariffs and his administration has warned of retaliatory duties against India. Nor will our government’s domestic popularity go up, as planeload after planeload of deported Indian citizens land at our airports from the US.
It’s the same with investors. Foreign investment in India is still positive but not at the levels we had expected. The clearest indication of this is the flight of foreign money from the Indian stock market, which has led to a bloodbath in share prices. With the US poised for a boom even as our economy slows down, it will be harder and harder to tempt foreign investors to come back. (Foreign investors have withdrawn $8.3 billion from our market in January 2025 alone.)
But the sharper shock has been the diminishing global position of India, compared to China. Despite the best efforts of our government in its early months to reach out to China, not only did the Chinese spurn our offers of friendship, but their army also marched into India’s territory. After talking tough for years, the government has finally accepted China’s strengthened position and is now hurriedly trying to “normalise” relations. Even if that works, it will take time for India to recover its old position as a rival to China.
It got worse for us last week when China’s DeepSeek shook up the world with its advances in artificial intelligence (AI). There was a time when we dreamt of being world leaders in technology. Now, the Chinese are so far ahead that they don’t even regard us as competition. It’s between them and the US.
For the middle class, these disappointments come on top of the anger over income tax. It is shocking that only 2 per cent of Indians pay income tax and that they pay far more tax than all of India’s profitable companies put together.
There are some signs that the government will act to reassure the middle class. But there are always those who say that it doesn’t care. Hindutva is enough to keep the BJP in office.
And indeed, you could argue that great spectacles like the Kumbh Mela will distract Indians. But surely, at some stage, people will cease to be distracted and will notice such setbacks as the end of India’s IT dominance. The era of our IIT-trained engineers who took on the world is being eclipsed. And often, it seems like we have lost the plot.
The big news from the IITs is not about some AI breakthrough. It’s about the director of IIT Madras, who is busy trumpeting the virtues of cow urine. Forget artificial intelligence, it’s hard enough to find any kind of intelligence at all these days.
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Can it get better?
I am not convinced that Hindus are so communalised that Muslim bashing is enough to keep them happy forever. If that was so, the BJP would’ve come to power a long time ago and it would never lose an election in a country where Hindus constitute the overwhelming majority.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his first landslide, it was for a Trump-like value proposition: “You let us do what we want in the social area and watch as we make our fat cat friends even richer. In return, we will give you a corruption-free, well-governed, prosperous India that will be the envy of the world.”
That promise now lies in tatters. When the BJP does win elections, it is not because of any promise of imminent Indian greatness. Instead, it wins because it has created caste coalitions and diverted billions of rupees of public money to poor voters as part of its welfare agenda.
The problem is that the middle class pays for this welfare agenda. Because the government has been unable to tax the millions of Indians who earn vast fortunes but operate outside the tax net, it has resorted to squeezing middle-class taxpayers even more. Many of these tax measures have brought the economy to the state it is in today. At least some of the carnage in the stock market could’ve been avoided if the finance minister had paid heed to the outcry that greeted the new capital gains tax rules in the last budget.
Can things get better? Well, in the short run, we will get some announcements, stunts, and photo opportunities. The prime minister will visit Washington next month, as Trump has asked, and the visit will be treated as a triumph by the Indian media. One or two big foreign investments in India will be announced. The budget will try to revive the stock market and offer tax concessions to the middle class.
But will that be enough? Can we emerge as a real alternative to China and as a significant world power in the years ahead?
Possibly. But if we remain a country that neglects technology in favour of gaumutra, that targets its own citizens, that continues to mismanage the economy, and that relies on welfare measures to remain in power, it will be too late for India. We will find it difficult to occupy the place in the world order that India rightfully deserves as the largest democracy on earth.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
Modi is good only in promises. But his actions and mindset are dictatorial with no respects to democratic values resulting in the most destructive, negative and dirtiest politics. He will go down in history as the worst PM India ever had.
We are world leaders in poverty, corruption, freebies, subsidies, reservations, and loan waivers.
China continues to live rent free in the brain of every Indian. China never says they want to be the next America. They just want to be a renewed China. So why are Indians always day dreaming of being the next China. How about becoming the new India? And by that I mean a country not obsessed with ancient glory, caste, religion and pseudoscience. China is working towards the future but remembers and retains the good parts of its ancient culture. India is the complete opposite.
India undet Modi is only a show-off, forget China, India is continously trailing the South East Asian bations. Not only the power hungry fanatical BJP, but also the whole ecosystem of crony capitalists it promotes, the GODI media it has cultured, the people benefitting from a corrupt system are all to blame. Look how shamelessly all such people are uniting against AAP which is fighting against this system.
What amazes me is the sheer animosity and contempt that this guy harbours for Modi and the right wing organisations.
For anything and everything, the blame is conveniently placed on Modi/BJP/RSS.
Agreed, we are far behind the Chinese in AI and ML technologies. But can Me. Sanghvi name the countries which are ahead if China in these technologies? Other than the USA, no other nation on earth can challenge the Chinese in matters of computer science.
There is a reason why the Chinese are doing great in AI/ML. Over the last two decades, they have won the overwhelming majority of the Maths and Physics Olympiads. The focus on Mathematics, right from the primary school level, had ensured Chinese dominance in theoretical computer science.
It is a lesson for India and we have to walk miles to catch up with the Chinese. At least Modi and his administration are attempting to catch up with China.
The primary question to be asked should be this:
Till 1970, both India and China had the same GDP size. What happened between 1970 and 1990 which catapulted China into a league far beyond that of India? Why was India stuck for these two decades? These two decades are the lost decades for India and we will have to live the consequences of this.
Vir singhavi better come with data. Not just pulling 8 billion from market.
Just compare what was India in 2014 and now in 2024. Diminishing power. Need check-up both to you and current govt also. A year of slow down which is still above 6 percent and biggest growing economy. But after reading article it look like we are bailouts from IMF. Comparing India china. But left all recent achivement and only focusing on AI. Good try. Chinese economy is 4.5 times bigger than India. This is what you need to focus. And current also need reality check now, to focus on more R&D and export oriented business.
Next time come with data how India is diminishing not like using leftist phobia of Hindu muslim, khumb Mela, cow urine, etc.
At last add some recent ISRO recent docking fourth in the world, indian market become biggest in Asia ind IPO launching, DRDO successful hypersonic missile testing fourth in world . I can just keep going about recent achivement . But now seriously govt need reality check and again we are not bankrupt like author mentioned
Vir seems to be in hurry and so recently he has been fishing out reasons that would help him reinforce his inference and assessment of the Modi government .He gives an impression that he knows the Indian middle class like the back of his hand.His condescending explanation about Modi’s popularity among the Middle class is propgandish and is far removed from reality.It would be better if he limits himself to his food connoisseur write ups.