Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Guwahati: Assam Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi is calling out the government for failing to match the growth seen by other BRICS nations. The criticism lands as New Delhi hosts the 18th BRICS Summit. The bloc now includes 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. They control 40 percent of the global GDP.
Gogoi highlighted a wide chasm in progress. India's GNI per capita grew from $1,350 in 2011 to $2,760 in 2025. Still, India ranks as the second-lowest among its 11 peers. Meanwhile, Ethiopia and China nearly tripled their dollar incomes over that same stretch. The trade sector shows similar rot. India's share of global goods exports crawled from 1.5 percent in 2011 to just 1.8 percent in 2023.
The trade deficit gap is widening fast. It spiked from $74.5 billion in 2020-21 to $226.1 billion in 2025-26, fueled by cheap imports from China. Gogoi noted, "India’s trade deficit with BRICS more than tripled." Domestic metrics offer little comfort. Undergraduate enrollment dropped in 2023-24, breaking the All India Survey on Higher Education record. Government health spending sits at a meager 1.43 percent of GDP for 2022-23.
Innovation remains stagnant. India sits at 38th place out of 139 economies in the Global Innovation Index. Gogoi argues this is "far short of where an aspiring Viksit Bharat needs to be." He claims the Modi administration spent ten years chasing political control over schools and backing select big businesses instead of fixing the fundamentals. India chairs the summit under the theme of resilience and sustainability, but the MP says the leadership needs an immediate pivot.
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