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Imagine your company told you last year that your salary was ₹86,000.
This year, it pays you ₹88,000. That is an increase of roughly 2.6%. Not impressive enough? No problem. Welcome to Modi School of Economics.
The company simply rewrites its old records and declares that your salary last year was not ₹86,000 but only ₹80,000, thanks to a convenient "new methodology". Suddenly, the same ₹88,000 salary is advertised as a spectacular 10% increase.
Then a brass band is stationed outside your house to celebrate this "historic financial miracle".
That's exactly what the Modi govt has done with GDP, according to former Finance Secretary and Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, who has raised questions about the Modi govt's celebrated 7.8% GDP growth figure.
The govt is beating drums across the country, with Prime Minister Modi presenting the number as another monumental achievement of his govt. But look beneath the headline and the statistical circus begins.
For the April–June 2025 quarter, the govt had originally estimated India’s GDP at current prices at approximately ₹86.05 lakh crore.
But when it came time to calculate growth for April–June 2026, the figure for the same quarter last year was revised downward to approximately ₹80 lakh crore.
Just like that, nearly ₹6 lakh crore vanished from last year's economy.
This year's GDP was estimated at ₹88.27 lakh crore.
Now look at the mathematics.
Using the figure originally announced by the govt:
₹86.05 lakh crore → ₹88.27 lakh crore
Nominal growth works out to only around 2.6%.
But after shrinking last year's figure to ₹80 lakh crore:
₹80 lakh crore → ₹88.27 lakh crore
Nominal growth suddenly jumps to 10.3%. Adjust it for inflation, and voilà, the govt gets its headline figure of 7.8% real GDP growth.
Bravo!
Growing the economy rapidly was apparently difficult, so the previous year's economy was made smaller instead.
According to Garg's argument, had last year's GDP figure not been revised downward, nominal growth would have been only around 2.6%. After accounting for inflation, real growth would have been close to ZERO.
So before Modi and his ministers injure their shoulders patting themselves on the back, they must answer a basic question.
Did India's economy actually grow spectacularly, or was last year's measuring scale simply rewritten to manufacture a spectacular-looking growth rate?
Because changing the baseline is not an economic miracle.
It is statistical makeup applied to an economy whose pain ordinary Indians experience every single day.