A recent report released by Oxfam has made startling revelations about economic disparity in India: “India’s top one percent owned more than 40.5 percent of its total wealth in 2021,” as per Oxfam.

Interestingly, when the economic condition of the majority of people declined drastically during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 to 2022) throughout the world and millions of Indians faced the worst economic crises, “the wealth of India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, increased by 46 percent, while the combined wealth of India’s top richest had touched $660 billion,” states Oxfam.

“In 2022, Adani was ranked the second richest person in the world on Bloomberg’s wealth index. He also topped the list of people whose wealth witnessed the maximum rise globally during the year, and the number of billionaires in the country increased to 166 from 102 in 2020, the report said.

“The report highlighted the large disparity in wealth distribution in India, saying that more than 40 percent of the wealth created in the country from 2012 to 2021 had gone to just one percent of the population while only three percent went to the bottom fifty percent of the population.”

The report mentioned, “The poor in India are unable to afford even basic necessities to survive, but the country’s poor and middle class were taxed more than the rich by the government,” Oxfam claims.

Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar said. “The marginalised—Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, women, and informal sector workers—are continuing to suffer in a system that ensures the survival of the richest.”

“It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top-paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year,” mentions the report.

 “India is unfortunately on a fast track to becoming a country only for the rich. The rich, currently, benefit from reduced corporate taxes, tax exemptions, and other incentives, and Oxfam has suggested levying a wealth tax on the ultra-rich in India to tackle the economic disparity.”. 

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