Context

• Across the world, societies are becoming increasingly fragmented and polarised at the very moment when technological, ecological, and demographic upheavals are reshaping human life.
• For India, this global turbulence presents both an opportunity and a challenge. With nearly 65 percent of its population under the age of 35, India holds a demographic advantage unmatched by most other nations.
• At the same time, the country faces the urgent question of whether its young people can be integrated meaningfully into economic and democratic life.
• The answer will determine not only India’s growth trajectory but also the vitality of its democracy.

Key Barriers to Inclusive Growth of India

• The Unequal Geography of Growth
  • Despite the nation’s aspirations, India’s growth remains strikingly uneven.
  • Cities, which occupy a mere 3 percent of the country’s land, account for more than 60 percent of GDP.
  • Meanwhile, nearly 85 percent of Indians live in the district of their birth, often in semi-urban or rural areas far removed from metropolitan opportunity.
  • This concentration of growth and wealth has led to a dual crisis: the underutilisation of talent and the stagnation of wages.
  • While corporate profits soar, domestic consumption, long India’s economic backbone, remains dampened by low purchasing power across the majority of citizens.
  • In a volatile global order, India cannot rely solely on exports or elite consumption.
  • The next wave of development requires broad-based participation in production, consumption, and innovation, especially from young people outside metropolitan centres.
• Centralisation and its Discontents
  • A key barrier to inclusive growth lies in India’s heavily centralised model of governance.
  • Policy has long prioritised administrative efficiency, technocratic interventions, and digital service delivery.
  • While these mechanisms improve distribution, they often come at the cost of local political agency.
  • Elected representatives, instead of being leaders shaping developmental direction, are reduced to mediators of entitlements.
  • Electoral politics has increasingly pivoted to welfare through cash transfers, substituting long-term structural transformation with short-term handouts.
  • As a result, both citizens and their representatives are experiencing political fatigue, particularly the youth, whose aspirations for mobility clash with a reality of limited opportunities.

The Path Forward

• Reimagining Districts as Democratic Commons
  • Districts have long anchored India’s administrative system, but this structure has tended to cast citizens as passive recipients of state services.
  • A democratic transformation would shift this orientation, making districts not just administrative units but civic spaces where governance is accountable, transparent, and locally responsive.
  • A district-first framework would allow national schemes to be disaggregated and outcomes tracked locally, illuminating disparities in investment and opportunity.
  • This would deepen accountability, enabling course correction where progress lags.
  • Moreover, it would tie governance more directly to elected representatives, encouraging them to deliver locally relevant solutions and fostering civic engagement.
  • Measurement alone cannot overcome deficits of capacity or political will, but it can create transparency, surface local innovations, and build coalitions for reform across political leaders, civil society, and private actors.
• Shared Responsibility for Inclusive Growth
  • For such a transformation to succeed, India’s top 10 percent, its political leaders, corporate executives, and intellectuals, must take visible responsibility.
  • Too often, commitments to inclusion remain abstract principles.
  • A district-first civic framework provides a tangible path for elites to translate good intentions into local action, bridging the persistent gap between policy design and lived reality.
  • By redistributing power to communities and nurturing collective accountability, this approach can create common ground rooted in shared national purpose rather than polarising partisanship.

Conclusion

• India stands at a crossroads and the youth represent its greatest strength, but their potential will remain stifled unless governance and opportunity extend beyond urban centres.
• By reimagining districts as democratic commons, India can revitalise both its economic model and its democratic ethos.
• This district-first vision is not merely an administrative reform; it is a political and moral project that seeks to rebuild trust, expand opportunity, and anchor democracy where citizens actually live.
• If India fails to act, it risks squandering its demographic dividend and eroding the very foundations of its democracy.