The underdog ascends: The rise of a new Indian elite

"...India was, in the simplest way, on the move, that all over the vast country men and women had moved out of the cramped ways and expectations of their parents and grandparents and were expecting more." - V S Naipaul in 'India: A Million Mutinies Now' (1989). The joining up of India is an obvious spectacle. With the national highway network surging from 79,000 kilometres in 2012 to 1.4 lakh kilometres in 2022, domestic air travel passengers doubling from around 58 million in 2012-13 to 136 million in 2022-23, individuals having access to the internet surging from 14 per cent in 2014 to 51 per cent in 2023 and the number of bank accounts growing from one billion in 2015 to three billion in 2023, the last decade has seen a dramatic improvement in the country's physical and digital infrastructure. This economic integration is altering the composition of the Indian elite by creating opportunity and prosperity for hitherto disadvantaged and marginalised groups. So, who are the new Indian elites? And what are the investment implications of their economic ascent? Systematic build up of basic infrastructure After decades of Licence Raj, in 1991, the then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao and finance minister Dr Manmohan Singh took steps to liberalise the economy. They allowed foreign and domestic firms to set up their units without seeking hundreds of licenses. What followed was a decade of new private players entering the fray and starting to build their businesses. This was further fueled by the global economic boom of 2003-07. The 2000s in India were thus, marked by stellar economic performance, with animal spirits working in full force. However, this stopped in 2010, when the then Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Vinod Rai, published detailed accounts of how the exchequer had been defrauded. This resulted in a loss of face for the then-ruling UPA-II government, which helped the NDA triumph in the 2014 General Elections. However, even before the NDA's victory, the seeds of transformational change had been sown, thanks to the creation of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), helmed by Nandan Nilekani. UIDAI, or Aadhaar as it is better known, marked th

This article was originally published on June 01, 2024.