PrintFriendlyFrom poverty alleviation to $4 trillion GDP, success of Modi era is in real-time implementation of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s Antyodaya philosophy
In May 2025, it was announced that India has already crossed the $4 trillion GDP mark and is currently the world’s fourth largest economy, based on nominal GDP. In 2014, when Narandra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, India’s GDP was just about $2 trillion. It was also among the ‘Fragile-Five’ economies of the world as per a Morgan Stanley report.
Over the next one decade, India’s transformation and quantum leap to become the fourth largest, and one of the most resilient, economies of the world, has been nothing less than a phoenix-like rise from ashes. This is especially true when witnessed against the backdrop of severe disruptions that India, like many others, faced due to covid pandemic, and Ukraine-Russia conflict, which had a devastating impact on global supply chains of critical commodities and components, even as cost of healthcare went up manifold. Ironically, while presenting the Interim Budget for 2014-15 in February 2014, UPA’s Finance Minister had projected India to become world’s third largest economy by 2043, a benchmark that at the current pace, India is likely to reach in another couple of years.
The fundamental dynamics of India’s growth trajectory becomes even more profound when measured through the realm of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which translates India’s GDP into a $17.65 trillion behemoth, as per IMF, third in ranking just after US and China, and with a per capita income of $12,132.
Focusing on both Top-down & Bottom-up
In this entire journey of the last 11 years in Modi era, some of the most critical aspects of India’s growth story pivot around pioneering long-stalled structural reforms like GST or Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code Act, reducing corporate tax rates to levels at par with global benchmarks, allowing 100% FDI in contract manufacturing and insurance, opening up of new sectors such as defense, and space, to private sector participation, as also giving massive impetus to infrastructure development.
While India witnessed immense surge in inward FDI flow as well, the economy was no more dependent on FDI for its investment-led growth story. Over the last 11 years, Modi Government has spent more than Rs 100 lakh crore in capital and social sector programs alone. From national highways, to rural road network, from rail infrastructure push, to Bharatmala project, from major expansion of metro rail systems, to Sagarmala project, and streamlining of project execution architecture by Modi Government, India had a literal metamorphosis in the infrastructural landscape. So much so that even Morgan Stanley, which had put India in the ‘Fragile-Five’ list in 2013, had to admit in 2023 that, ‘this India is different from what it was in 2013’. It had further stated that, ‘In a short span of 10 years India has gained positions in the world order with significant positive consequences for the macro and market outlook’.
In the aftermath of the covid pandemic when the entire world was witnessing major economic slowdown, India’s growth and turnaround story made even IMF define India as ‘a bright spot on this otherwise dark horizon’.
Antyodaya as the pivot of India’s growth story
Apart from massive infrastructural push and redefining the efficiency of departments like Income Tax or Passport, Modi Government’s biggest transformational approach has been the real time implementation of the core essence of Antyodaya in execution of socio-economic policies. The principal concept of Antyodaya as propounded by Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya states, ‘The success of economic planning and economic progress will not be measured through those who are at the top of the society’s ladder, but through the people at the lowest rung of the society’. Apart from bridging the rural-urban and privileged-deprived gap, the whole essence of Antyodaya based economic model always had tremendous potential to make a significant portion of India’s population, perpetually deprived of access to basic capital and amenities, become real contributor to the GDP story of India.
From 11 crore toilets and 2.23 lakh community sanitary complexes, as part of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, to Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana to provide medical insurance of Rs 5 lakh that targeted 50 crore of Indian population at the lower base of the pyramid, from Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural) to provide 4.95 crore eligible households the necessary dwellings with basic amenities by 2029, and of which 3.56 crore have already been sanctioned by March 2025, to Jal Jeevan Mission, aiming to provide every rural household with basic drinking water facilities, each has a multiplier impact in terms of ensuring that when basic healthcare and housing issues are taken care of, the ability of even the most underprivileged to unleash his potential as a societal and economic contributor can truly be unleashed.
Unleashing the Potential of Bottom of Pyramid
Take for example the fact that India has for long been a country in which nearly 50% of the population never had access to basic banking facilities. One of the first schemes that PM Modi initiated after coming to power was Jan Dhan Yojana, under which a special drive was made to open bank accounts for the unbanked. As of March 2025, Jan Dhan Yojana ensured 55 crore bank accounts opened, and an astounding 36.6 crore of them are from rural and suburban regions. Today, almost every household of India has a bank account. This was followed by a special drive to connect the bank accounts with Aadhar number and mobile number of account holders, resulting in JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile) trinity. This became the base for initiating Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, the biggest in the world, whereby Modi Government started directly putting money, as part of social welfare schemes, into the accounts of the beneficiaries bypassing all kinds of intermediaries. As per India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, over the last 8 years, under various schemes, Modi Government has disbursed more than $450 billion to beneficiaries through DBT and have saved almost $40 billion.
Empowering the Micro Entrepreneurs
The opening of bank accounts through Jan Dhan Yojana was followed by another revolutionary scheme, i.e. the Mudra Yojana. Almost the entire chunk of India’s micro enterprises, running into crores of such entities never had access to formal banking for capital support. This lack of capital was at the core of they never being able to make even the basic incremental expansion or consolidation of their businesses. Mudra Yojana changed it all. Since 2015, more than 52 crore loans have been given under the scheme, with a cumulative amount of an astounding Rs 32 lakh crore.
Not just that, from Stand-Up India to PM Vishwakarma, and special emphasis that was given on enhancing productivity of poultry, fisheries and dairy sector, focus on bottom of pyramid has been as much as has been to transform India as the third largest ecosystem for start-ups in the world. Further India’s digital revolution based on UPI, made even the most modest self-employed micro entrepreneurs conduct digital transactions with ease. In FY24-25, total digital transactions surpassed 18,000 crore with cumulative transactional value standing at Rs 25 lakh crore. There can never be a better example of bridging digital divide than India.
Inclusive Growth Alleviated Poverty
Modi Government has been as focused on developing industrial corridors and transforming India into a global manufacturing hub through Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, as he has ensured that more than 100 crore Indians got free Covid vaccines, and more than 80 crore Indians got additional free rations, time since the covid pandemic stuck the world.
The real-world manifestation of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s Antyodaya philosophy is proven by the fact that just as under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, India has emerged as the fourth largest economy of the world, it has also been simultaneously able to take more than 25 crore people out of multidimensional poverty in the same time frame.
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(The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the position of the organisation)