Rising GDP mean little if classrooms and clinics remain in ruins
Trillion-Dollar Dreams, Pennies for People: Are we taking good care of our people on the education and health front compared to economies that are bigger than us or those we have left behind?
The roar of India’s economic engine can be heard across the globe, yet in the quiet corners of our village schools and the crowded wards of our public hospitals, that sound is a mere whisper. We boast of a $4.5 trillion GDP and our status as the world’s fourth-largest economy, but there is a haunting disconnect between our national balance sheet and the lived reality of our youth. We have handed our children the keys to a digital future while leaving them trapped in a social infrastructure that is decaying under the weight of decades of underfunding.
To witness a child in a rural district attempting to learn coding on a shared, outdated table is to see the “demographic dividend” slipping through our fingers. We expect these children to out-innovate peers in the U.S., China, and Germany, yet we provide them with a fraction of the nutritional, medical, and educational support those nations guarantee. While our neighbours in the top five brackets invest double digits of their GDP into the health and minds of their people, India continues to treat these essentials as optional extras. It is a heart breaking gamble: we are betting on the genius of our children while refusing to pay for the books they read or the medicine they need.
India today stands at a precipice of historical irony. We celebrate our ascent as the world’s fourth-largest economy, yet we continue to starve the very engines—health and education—that must sustain this momentum. The latest fiscal projections for 2026 reveal a familiar and heart breaking script: a nation obsessed with the “hardware” of progress—highways, digital stacks, and defense shields—while neglecting the “software” of its people.
The numbers tell a story of systemic neglect that no amount of patriotic rhetoric can mask. While the National Education Policy 2020 promised a visionary leap to 6% of GDP for education, actual spending in 2026 remains stubbornly anchored near 4%, a figure that looks even more meagre when measured against our global rivals. In contrast, the United States leads the pack by dedicating a robust 6% of its massive GDP to learning and research, while Brazil, despite its economic volatility, consistently prioritizes its youth with an investment of nearly 5.8%. Even Germany, with its sophisticated industrial economy, recognizes that national strength is born in the classroom, allocating roughly 5% of its GDP to ensure its workforce remains the most skilled in the world.
In healthcare, the situation is even more dire, with public expenditure gasping at less than 2% of GDP, a fraction of the double-digit commitments seen in the West. Contrast this with the giants we are chasing: Germany allocates nearly 12% of its GDP to healthcare; Japan ensures over 11%; and even the United States directs 17.5% toward the well-being of its citizens. By choosing to spend so little on the minds and bodies of its citizens, India is not practicing fiscal caution; it is performing a slow-motion surrender of its demographic potential.
Defenders of the status quo argue that India, as a developing nation, cannot afford high social spending. But this argument collapses under scrutiny. Countries like Thailand and Brazil—economies India has surpassed in size—spend nearly 5% and 9% of their GDP on public health, respectively.
Infrastructure can be built within a decade; human capital takes an entire generation. Fiscal caution that undermines human development is not prudence—it is self-sabotage.
The emotional cost of this imbalance is immense. A widening gulf between elite private institutions and neglected public systems is creating two Indias: one that can afford health, skills, and opportunity, and another that is left to rely on resilience alone. This is neither sustainable nor just.
As India marches toward its 2030 ambitions and the promise of Viksit Bharat, the dream will remain hollow unless it rests on a foundation of healthy, educated citizens. Healthcare and education must no longer be treated as expenditures to be minimized, but as the most profitable investments a civilisation can make. A nation’s true security lies not only in the thickness of its armour, but in the strength, wisdom, and well-being of the people who stand behind it.
