Why do India-Bangladesh GDP comparisons generate so much controversy?

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On April 21, Scroll broke the news that the International Monetary Fund had estimated that the per capita gross domestic product of Bangladesh would be higher than that of India in 2026.

This otherwise arcane bit of economic news produced a flurry of bitter reactions.

Former Infosys chief financial officer and Bharatiya Janata Party supporter, TV Mohandas Pai said that it was “idiotic” of Professor of Economics at Cornell University and former chief economist of the World Bank Kaushik Basu to highlight this data in a tweet. Pai blamed the situation on a “currency issue” since Bangladesh has a “fixed rate” – a point that is factually incorrect.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal dismissed the data point altogether since, in his opinion, no “sane person” could ever compare Bangladesh with India.

A developing country

Part of the reason so many Indians were shocked at this India-Bangladesh data is that quite a few of them have a somewhat exaggerated image of India’s position in the world. I have written about India’s superpower delusions that were widespread at the...

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