Democracy is not merely about free and fair elections or the peaceful transfer of power. In principle and practice, it is also about how the elected political leaders cater to the needs of the marginal and the vulnerable sections of society, irrespective of whether these social or religious groups vote for them. In this essay, we wish to quantitatively assess the performance of this government in the context of poverty reduction among social and religious groups from 2011-12 to 2023-24. Our primary goal is to critically evaluate whether the Narendra Modi government has upheld the core ideals of democracy by addressing people’s fundamental needs and enabling their upliftment from the burdens of poverty. Poverty not only deprives an individual of basic necessities, but also denies people a life of dignity. Worse still, poverty remains one of the greatest barriers to social upliftment.
First, it is essential to briefly discuss how we measure poverty. We use the poverty line for 2011-12 for each state and Union Territory (UT), which the expert group under C Rangarajan recommended in 2014. It is crucial to mention that the Government of India did not officially accept this poverty line. However, the Rangarajan poverty line has three critical features that merit consideration. First, it is based on the modified mixed recall period (MMRP), which is the basis of collecting detailed data on household expenditures on food, consumables and services, and durable goods and items, and experts recommend that MMRP yields estimates closer to the “true value”. Second, the food component of the poverty line for rural and urban areas is based on the calorie requirements recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research norms. Third, for urban areas, the Rangarajan poverty line gave higher weightage to the non-food component, particularly education, clothing and bedding, fuel and light, conveyance, rent, and medical expenditure. For 2023–24, we use the state and UT level data on the Consumer Price Index for each component in estimating the Rangarajan poverty line and update the state and UT poverty lines accordingly for 2023–24.
This analysis is based on the unit-level nationally representative survey data of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) from 2011-12, which surveyed more than 1 lakh households, and the HCES 2023-24, which surveyed more than 2.5 lakh households across the country. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India, conducted these surveys.
Overall, the estimates reveal a remarkable decline in poverty across India in the last 12 years. In rural areas, poverty declined from 30.4 per cent to 3.9 per cent, while in urban areas, it declined from 26.4 per cent to 3.9 per cent. A similar magnitude of decline has been documented by Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin.
There is a significant decrease in poverty among religious groups in the country, in particular, the two largest groups — Hindus and Muslims. In 2011-12, in rural areas, the poverty rate among Muslims was 31.7 per cent, while among Hindus, it was marginally lower at 30.9 per cent (a Muslim-Hindu difference of 0.8 percentage points). By 2023-24, the poverty rate among Muslims had fallen to 2.4 per cent, while for the Hindus, it fell to 4 per cent (the Muslim-Hindu gap is now negative 1.6 percentage points). In urban areas, in 2011-12, the poverty rate among Muslims was 39.4 per cent, while for Hindus, it was 24.4 per cent. In terms of the poverty gap between the two dominant religious groups, the Muslim-Hindu gap in poverty rate was a staggering 15 percentage points 12 years back. By 2023-24, however, the poverty rate among both groups has reduced significantly. For Muslims, it is 5.7 per cent, and for Hindus, it is 3.7 per cent. The poverty rate reduction in percentage terms was higher among Muslims at 33.7 percentage points compared to Hindus at 20.7 percentage points. The Muslim-Hindu gap in poverty in urban areas, therefore, reduced from 15 percentage points to 2 percentage points in the 12 years, showing a remarkable convergence between the two major religious groups over time.
Next, we compare the poverty rates across social groups: Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), Other Backward Class (OBC), and General category. The estimates reveal a significant decline in poverty across all social groups. In rural areas, the poverty rate was the highest among the ST group at 49.5 per cent in 2011-12, which has reduced to 12.2 per cent. If we compare the ST group to the General category, the gap in terms of poverty rates was 29.5 percentage points in 2011-12. However, within 12 years, this gap has narrowed to 10.6 percentage points. For the SC population, the gap in poverty rates with the General category was 17.4 percentage points in 2011-12, which has narrowed significantly to 2.6 percentage points now, showing convergence.
In urban areas, the highest poverty rate in 2011-12 was among the SC population at 39.6 per cent, while for the General category, it was 16.7 per cent. In 2023–24, the poverty rate for the SC category has reduced to 6.6 per cent (33 percentage point decline), while for the General category, it has fallen to 2.5 per cent (14.2 percentage point decline). The difference in poverty rate between the SC and General category narrowed from approximately 20 percentage points to 4.1 percentage points. The ST population, too, saw a major decline in poverty rate from 38.2 per cent to 9.9 per cent in the 12 years. The difference in poverty rate between the ST and the General category was 21.5 percentage points in 2011–12, which has reduced to 7.4 percentage points. For the OBC category, the poverty rate fell from 30.4 per cent to a significantly lower 3.6 per cent. Overall, our estimates reveal that the highest decline in poverty rates among the vulnerable population of urban India has been for the SC group, followed by the ST group and then the OBC group.
This essay has assessed poverty reduction across major religious and social groups of India, using unit-level data from nationally representative surveys of households in 2011-12 and 2023-24. The analysis reveals that the nature of India’s economic growth, as well as the numerous government welfare programmes have been widely inclusive and significantly impactful. The impact on minorities, in particular the Muslim population, has been noteworthy. The impact on socially vulnerable groups like the SCs, STs and OBCs has also been substantial. Beyond the noise of divisive vote-bank politics and narrow political ideologies, the results from objective data analysis reveal that all sections of Indian society have witnessed a major reduction in poverty in the last decade. It reflects the Modi government’s commitment to democracy in India — in principle and indeed in practice.
The writer is member, Economic Advisory Committee to PM
