West Bengal lags behind India in nominal income, but inflation-adjusted data tell a subtler story: real incomes broadly kept pace. The state did not simply decline; it grew in lower-priced sectors, especially agriculture, while missing faster-growing industry and services
A commonly held belief about West Bengal’s economy is that it has steadily declined in size and importance relative to the national economy since Independence. A closer look at the data over the past six decades suggests that what appears to be a linear story of steady economic decline may be partly driven by movements in prices rather than by real income. This does not let the state off the hook for its less-than-stellar economic performance, but it does allow us to probe deeper than the familiar story of lost past glory. Once we adjust for differences in inflation across states, West Bengal’s trajectory looks far less dramatic, and the story that emerges is much more nuanced.