Economic liberalization concentrated India’s wealth while most citizens stayed poor

Evidence

After the fall of the Soviet Union, India, which was once at the forefront of the Non-Aligned Movement, repositioned itself as a ‘natural ally’ of the United States and Israel. In the 1990s, the Indian government embarked on a process of dramatic economic reforms, opening up a previously protected market to global capital, with natural resources, essential services and national infrastructure that had been developed over fifty years with public money, now turned over to private corporations. Twenty years later, despite a spectacular GDP growth rate (which has recently slowed down), the new economic policies have led to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Today, India’s one hundred richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of its celebrated GDP. In a nation of 1.2 billion, more than 800 million people live on less than Rs 20 a day. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 55

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s caste-annihilation investigation: this economic backdrop is the context for whether caste networks persist or dissolve in a liberalized economy — directly relevant to the research purpose.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 55