Lines between haves, have-nots and want-mores harden as markets slide

A year ago, the Nifty was at record highs. Retail investors were flooding into the market, convinced they had cracked the code

Is the market in a bear grip? Veteran investor Krishna Jha thinks so.

India has more billionaires than the UK, yet its ultra-rich remain disconnected from the economic insecurity. (Shutterstock)

The veteran investor made his first fortune when he exited a technology company in his younger days. Since then, he has lived through bull and bear cycles. He now knows soaring markets and gut-wrenching crashes and promises of “this time is different” never hold true. He has also learnt that a bull run, fuelled by excess liquidity and overconfidence inevitably, collapses under its own weight. And yet, investors who piled into the market over the last three years don’t see it coming. He has the humility to acknowledge he didn’t know either when it would hit either.

A year ago, the Nifty was at record highs. Retail investors were flooding into the market, convinced they had cracked the code. It was easy: SIPs in mutual funds, some exposure to high-growth stocks, maybe even dabbling in options trading. They believed in the India story. Then the tide turned. Today, the Nifty is back where it was a year ago. Portfolios have been erased, savings wiped out and millions have lost their shirts.

Jha isn’t surprised. “They’ve only seen a bull run,” he says, shaking his head. “They don’t know what a bear cycle feels like.” He isn’t trying to be dramatic. He has seen it earlier. Since touching a high of 85,978.25 on September 27, 2024, the benchmark BSE Sensex is down 14.86%, and closed at 73,198.1 on Friday.

The correction and Jha’s analysis are reflected in a number in a report that has landed like a thunderclap in India’s investment circles, the Blume Ventures Indus Valley Report 2025. According to it, SIP cancellations surged from 52% to 64% in under a year. People who had believed that compounding would make them rich were quietly withdrawing what was left of their money.

And what of people? How do they feel?

Consider Binoy V, a former cargo ship captain. Tired of long months away from his family, he quit his ₹7 lakh per month job to trade stocks full-time. He took courses, learned technical analysis, and for a while, it seemed like he had made the right move. Then came the volatility. In less than a year, his entire savings — ₹1 crore, built over two decades at sea — were gone. He has spiralled into depression, unable to explain to his wife and child how everything had vanished in an avalanche of red tickers on a trading screen. This explains why Indians are among the most active derivatives traders in the world, yet many lack even the basic understanding of risk.

Or Vijay (who wants to share only one name). A senior executive earning ₹60 lakh a year, he wasn’t supposed to be financially insecure. Yet, standing at a petrol pump, he discovered that his credit card was maxed out. His lifestyle had been built on the assumption that his income would always rise, that the markets would keep growing. But the EMI on his apartment hadn’t shrunk. His children’s school fees had only increased. His stock portfolio is down 30%. His entire financial existence was a house of cards.

Harsh Yadav, a 22-year-old security guard, watches Vijay leave for work, admiring his car. He doesn’t know that Vijay is closer to financial ruin than he is. Yadav makes ₹11,000 a month. He washes cars in the morning and stands guard for 12 hours before going to his rented room to catch some sleep. He sends half of his salary to his mother and siblings who live in Uttar Pradesh. Yadav doesn’t invest in stocks, nor does he have loans. His financial world is brutal, but simple. There is no illusion of wealth because his family holds no land, nor does he expect compounding returns from the markets. He was hoping to make it to the Indian Army. But there were hundreds of thousands like him, and he didn’t make the cut. He now hopes to break into the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). What gives him the confidence to grit his teeth and hold on are the savings in gold his family has built up over the years.

And then there is Geeta Shirke. She has no gold. She stands outside a construction site, hoping to find work for the day. Some days, she gets lucky. Other days, she goes home empty-handed. She never thinks about stock markets or SIPs. Her biggest financial decision isn’t about investing. It’s about whether she can afford two meals that day – or one. She lives in an India that doesn’t make it into reports or investor presentations. She is what the good people who authored the Blume Ventures Indus Vally report would call India3, a part of the invisible billion people that most readers of this newspaper don’t see.

That number has been picked up and amplified by news outlets such as BBC and the Wall Street Journal. But it’s also a number that shouldn’t have surprised anyone. There have always been many Indias.

The many Indias

For, India is also formalising, growing, and taking strides towards economic resilience. Consumption and services now dominate GDP, with India’s share of the global services market steadily expanding. Unlike China’s manufacturing-led growth, India’s ascent is being driven by its ability to export software, IT services, and high-value consulting to the world. This is not a traditional growth path, but one that suits India’s unique strengths.

And when all these stories are strung together, India is not one country. It is four countries.

India0 is where the ultra-elite live. The industrialists, legacy business families, global entrepreneurs, and the Indian diaspora who wield global financial influence. Their wealth operates in another orbit, detached from India’s economic volatility. They dictate investment flows, drive luxury markets, and control corporate boardrooms. While the country debates inflation, they invest in Dubai, London, or Singapore. India’s GDP fluctuations barely register in their portfolios. They don’t experience economic cycles. They profit from them.

Despite making up a tiny fraction of the population, India0 punches above its weight class on the global stage. Indian-origin CEOs run Silicon Valley’s biggest companies. India has more billionaires than France or the UK. Its luxury market is expanding faster than most developed nations. Yet, its ultra-rich remain disconnected from the economic insecurity that grips India1, India2, and India3. Unlike in the US, where the top 1% contributes significantly to tax revenues, India0’s wealth is largely untouchable.

Then there is India1 where the top 10% live. This is where the Vijays of the country reside. They drive economic policy, control market sentiment, and power urban consumption. They are the stock traders, the startup founders, the CXOs. They are the first to feel the booms, but also the first to react when the tide turns.

India Rising?

Then there is gold. Indians have always seen gold as more than an investment. “The one insight which surprised me most came from my colleague Joseph Sebastian,” the lead author of the report, Sajit Pai noted. “In India, gold matters because of land issues. While that is not a data point per se, the insight into the connection did surprise me the most.” For many in India2 and India3, gold is not a luxury — it is security in a system where land ownership is legally and financially precarious. The rise in indebtedness is real, but so is the resilience of a population that has learned how to hedge against uncertainty.

India2 is the middle 300 million. They are Harsh. They have one foot on the hope of escalator to prosperity. But the other is on unstable ground. One missed paycheck, one medical emergency, one job loss, and they fall. They aspire to be India1, but structurally, they are closer to India3 than they realise.

Quick Commerce is the clearest sign of how consumption patterns are shifting. Urban Indians have moved away from kirana stores in metros. Their market share has dropped by 12% in two years. BlinkIt, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart have replaced the corner store, and the reason is simple: time has become a currency. Convenience now outweighs cost, especially for India1 consumers. But for India2 and India3, this shift has come at a price — small shop owners are struggling, and gig workers who power the Quick Commerce ecosystem find themselves in an endless hustle, earning less per order than they did two years ago.

India3 is Geeta and a billion others. They are the daily wage earners, the gig workers, the families who don’t know what tomorrow holds. They don’t buy stocks. They don’t debate interest rates. They exist on the periphery of the economic boom, rarely benefiting from it.

Yet, there are opportunities. India’s demographic dividend is still its greatest asset. With the right skilling programmes, tens, even hundreds of millions could be uplifted into high-value jobs. AI-proofing India’s workforce is a necessity, not a luxury. Pai acknowledges this shift: “No data point dramatically surprised me, though the one on education and unemployment moving in the same direction and the high F&O volume were two that did.”

And yet, every budget, every economic policy, every market prediction lumps them together as “India”.

Jha knows what’s coming next. This isn’t the first time India has seen a liquidity-fuelled boom. The smart money will move early, the market will correct, and the dream of easy growth will fade. But India is not just a country of disappearing fortunes. It is a country of reinvention. For Vijay, Harsh, and Geeta, the question is not whether India will rise. It is whether they will rise with it. The Indus Valley Report provides the data. Krishna Jha provides the wisdom. The rest of India is still figuring out – if it can look beyond the viral headline.