Figures that say things about us
5 min read . Updated: 22 Dec 2022, 09:37 PM IST
Premium- Does India’s per capita income of nearly ₹1.5 lakh, estimated as of 2022, define our middle class?
Yesterday was National Mathematics Day, the birthday of the great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. So for this week, some finagling with figures. Is there a theme to it all? I’ll leave that to you to decide.
To start, consider a list that’s making the rounds titled “Top 10 countries with the most billionaires". First and second on the list are, as you might expect, China and the US, with 1,058 and 696 billionaires respectively. Germany, the UK, Russia and Thailand are some of the other countries that figure. But the list is getting some attention in this country because India, with 177 billionaires, is ranked third.
We can presume that these billionaires’ financial assets are measured in dollars, and in each case, they amount to more than a billion dollars. That India has as many as 177 such people says something about this country’s economy and capacity to generate wealth.
Though there’s the inevitable comparison with China. Our populations are nearly identical, but that country has six times as many billionaires. So what does that say about both countries’ economies and their capacities to generate wealth? Or take the comparison with the US: with less than a third of our population, they have nearly four times as many billionaires. What does that say?
But leave such musing aside. Whenever I see a list like this, I wonder if anyone has ever tried to compile another list. The complement of this one, if you like—a ranking at the other end of the wealth spectrum. That is, if the people on the list own assets worth more than a billion dollars, there must be those who own assets worth less than, let’s say, a thousand dollars.
Let’s say we compile a list of “Top 10 countries with the most people who own less than $1,000". Which countries would figure on that list? What would be the count of such people for each of those Top 10 countries? Would India figure? If so, where? Would this list make the rounds too?
This may have a connection to something else in this column. Wait for it.
Some days ago, an item in my morning newspaper caught my eye. This was the headline: “Western Railway says punctuality of trains increased by 97% in 2022-23". This is a reference to Bombay’s “local" trains, the suburban services that are the lifeline of the city.
Two things piqued my interest. First, we are still several days away from 2023, so what is the meaning of “2022-23"? Second, an increase of 97% is huge. How was it achieved?
Then I read the report. The first sentence informed me that punctuality had “increased to 97%". “To", not “by": there’s a big difference. Besides, this punctuality level is “better than pre-covid times, when it was around 95%". So we’re talking about an increase from 95% to 97%. Yes, definitely not an increase of 97%.
Now I would like to know what this punctuality actually means and how it is measured, besides what made it rise from 95% to 97%. But again, leave such musing aside. The report ends with this: “Currently, the Western Railway operates 1,383 trains daily ... It carries 256.8 million passengers on average every day."
Think about those numbers for a moment, and let’s do some basic arithmetic with them.
First, 256.8 million is about 10 times the population of Bombay. Is it even conceivable that the city’s trains are moving 10 times the city’s population every day? No. So by itself, that number should have raised the eyebrows of whoever wrote this item and/or edited it.
But the report offers a second way to understand just how absurd this number is. Divide it by the 1,383 trains Western Railway runs daily. Each of those trains, then, carries nearly 186,000 commuters. The “normal" capacity of a typical 12-car train is about 1,200, all seated. Of course these trains usually carry many more than that number. At the height of rush-hour, each carries close to 6,000 commuters.
Anyone who has travelled during rush-hour knows the meaning of that number 6,000: you’re packed in like sardines, sometimes unable to even lift an arm to scratch an itchy nose. So get this: this news report tells us the trains are carrying, on average, 30 times that number.
Absurd is the word.
Finally, earlier this month, another news report informed us that Prime Minister Modi had said this, or words to this effect: “Air travel was a luxury before 2014, but now even middle-class families look at it as an affordable option."
To parse this claim, we need to know two things: what does “middle-class" really mean? What are typical air fares these days?
For that second question, I picked Jaipur at random. Over a long weekend in the middle of February, I will need to pay over ₹5,000 to fly there and over ₹5,000 to return home to Bombay. Call it ₹10,000 all in.
To answer the first question, we need to know something about the distribution of wealth in India. Start with per capita income: for 2022, India’s is estimated at about ₹1.5 lakh. That is, Indians earn, on average, that much money in a year. Does this average (really, “mean") income level define our middle class?
Before you answer that, ask if we should consider India’s “median" income instead. That is the income point that divides Indians neatly in two: 50% earn more, and 50% earn less. The reason is that the mean can be distorted by “outlier" values—177 extremely rich Indians, for example. When you have data like that, the median is a sounder, more accurate “average" to consider. Only, data that would nail down India’s median income is hard to come by for various reasons. Still, some estimates have it at about ₹1.05 lakh.
Two questions to end this. First, do you, reading this, think of yourself as “middle-class"? If so, how does your annual income compare to either ₹1.05 lakh or ₹1.5 lakh?
Second, what would an Indian earning either ₹1.05 lakh or ₹1.5 lakh a year think of travelling to Jaipur and back for ₹10,000? Is that an affordable option?
Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His Twitter handle is @DeathEndsFun.
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