The Indians have an added reason for skepticism. Any resemblance between the inflation rate and reality is purely coincidental. Officially it is 7%, almost enviable in the current context, in a southern country that imports energy. “But how is it going to be 7%?” Nandita yells from Europe. “On my last visit, a kilo of flour had gone from 40 rupees to 56 in six months. And at Café Coffee Day it seemed that they had added a zero to the prices”.
Doubts about macroeconomic data are not new. It does not help to dispel them that Modi has repeatedly altered the calculation formulas.
Archena, in New Delhi, goes to the market every day to stock her restaurant, which competes with three shopping malls a hundred meters away. “Prices have never fluctuated so much, but a kilo of chicken, which was worth 180 rupees a year ago, is now worth up to 280 (3.50 euros). The tomato has bent”, she assures. “But the worst thing is not the food, but everything else, because of the taxes. And if you sell alcohol, it's already crazy."
While everything is going up, the economist Jean Drèze denounces that the central government's allocation for pensions – which widows bother to request – has been frozen since 2006! between 300 and 400 rupees (5 euros per month). How much does it cost to buy a beer? Several states, but not all, supplement that figure, which remains meager.
On the other hand, the failed attempt – before Modi – to move directly from a rural society to a service society has taken its toll on women, who make up a much smaller proportion of the workforce than in Bangladesh.
Also the closure of thousands of NGOs, after Modi prohibited them from receiving funds from abroad, has left many young workers on the street.
Meanwhile, his tax policies have helped two tycoons, second-generation Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, become the two richest men in Asia.
“Too many people confuse the health of the stock market with that of the economy,” economist Khera laments. But Modi also has its defenders, such as those who appreciate, in Assam, "the twenty kilos of free rice per family". Or the digital health card that opens the doors of private hospitals (without being able to choose). While his detractors believe that the urgent thing was to extend the public network, precarious and overwhelmed.
Other countries, like Turkey, have done both: strengthen the public and the private.
Many fear that the siren song that in India there is "a middle class of three hundred million", potential consumers, will return multiplied. But only one in ten Indian families owns a car.
In the Rajasthan of the palaces, he defines himself as middle class who, "after a day's work, can eat the bread cake with vegetables, instead of alone".
Simultaneously, national tourism collapses tourist infrastructure, where fifteen years ago there were only foreigners. While life expectancy has just passed 70 years and the fertility rate is in the sweet spot of 2.1 children per woman.
But the rupee fell to a record low the day before yesterday. While the crisis in other countries is already lowering their exports.
In any case, India has an advantage over China. parliamentary democracy. But the Indians also know or intuit that the politician who goes to elections has a wealth 21 times higher than the average. And whoever wins the seat, 100 times higher.
This week, the bitter spoonful of reality has been provided by Maiden, the Indian pharmacist behind the deaths of 66 children in Gambia, after consuming their cough syrup.
But there is also encouraging news, such as plans to build 80 airports. With the caveat that, not long ago, Adani won all five that were in the running in Kerala, without any previous experience.
"India is pursuing a more productive model and offers opportunities to those who contribute technology or automation," they explain in Acció, where they estimate the number of Catalan companies that regularly export to India at 985, "for 464 million euros."
