5th largest economy
As per the news agency Bloomberg’s calculations using IMF database and historical exchange rates, the size of the Indian economy in ‘nominal’ cash terms at the end of March 2022 quarter was US$854.7bn vs US$816bn for the UK economy. By this standard, India was the 5 th largest economy of the world as on 31 March 2022, behind the USA, China, Japan and Germany. This apparently innocuous, and mostly inconsequential, statistical data point has been subject of an intense discussion in India media – both mainstream and social. The pro establishment groups have celebrated this data point as an important milestone in the resurrection of the Indian economy, especially under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They have forcefully argued that the Indian economy surpassing the UK’s economy highlights the rising status of India in the global economy; and symbolizes the undoing of 200years of British slavery. The groups opposing the establishment claims highlighted that th...