U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent tariff hikes on China and various nations not only surprised the American business community but also sent shockwaves through the global value chain. Today, industries ranging from pin-making to shipbuilding rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing and skilled labor. In response, international firms are urgently seeking alternative production and labor ecosystems as part of a 'China Plus One' strategy. The Indian economy has also not been spared from President Trump’s tariff war. Amid this disruption, many trade and economic scholars, both in India and abroad, are evaluating India’s potential, with its youthful workforce, as a natural ‘global growth engine’ for driving the next phase of global growth and prosperity.
Young India’s perceived potential as a ‘Growth Market’ and ‘World’s factory’
India, the world’s most populous country with over 1.4 billion people, boasts a demographic advantage, with over 60% of its population under the age of 35. Economists, policymakers, and business leaders increasingly view this youthful population as India's greatest asset, especially as countries like the U.S, Europe, China, and Japan confront rapidly aging populations. In a world growing older, India’s 600 million-strong young workforce holds immense potential to drive both domestic and global economic growth. Fueled by this demographic dividend, India is well-positioned to become a dynamic global producer of goods and services. This promise of a ‘Young India’ is drawing strong interest from global businesses and policymakers seeking new hubs for manufacturing and participation in the India-based value chain system.
‘Bahujan’ nature of ‘Young India’
Manyawar Kanshiram distinguished the concept of ‘Bahujan’ from the Bahusankhya (numerical majority), framing the former as a majority of the Indian masses that has an independent political, social, cultural, economic, historical, and intellectual identity in Indian social life. For him, Bahujan was not merely about numbers but about the collective awakening of marginalized caste communities, recognising their ownership in the process of Indian nation-building. Drawing from the Buddha’s ethical conception of the many, Kanshiram articulated Bahujan as a modern, transformative identity that transcends the numerical strength of the Indian population and emphasizes the conscious, organized struggle of historically marginalised masses against caste domination.
The dominant policy narrative on India’s demographic dividend often takes a ‘helicopter view’ of youthful potential, presenting it as a homogeneous resource waiting to be tapped. This view, however, ignores the complex social, economic, and cultural realities of India’s young population, particularly the Bahujan majority, which comprises historically marginalized communities such as Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), De-Notified Tribes (D-NT), and Nomadic Tribes (NTs). These groups, across all religions, have long formed the backbone of India’s labor force, sustaining its agricultural, manufacturing, and service sectors, especially in the informal economy. According to the 1931 Caste Census and the 2011 Census, Bahujan communities constitute more than half of India’s population and represent a very large share of the working-age population. In this sense, India’s so-called demographic dividend is essentially a Bahujan demographic dividend. Yet much of the policy discourse remains caste-ignorant and socially sanitized, overlooking the structural exclusions that shape these communities’ access to opportunity.
Despite their central role in sustaining the economy, Bahujan communities remain systematically excluded from quality education, healthcare, skill development, and wealth-building avenues. Caste continues to dictate the social division of labor, access to economic opportunities, relegating most Bahujan workers to underpaid, precarious, and exploitative informal jobs that deny them the ability to own the value of their labor. When compared to China—India’s closest demographic counterpart—this contradiction becomes even sharper: the very youth celebrated as India’s economic future belong overwhelmingly to communities still denied the foundations of upward social and economic mobility. Yet policymakers, investors, and development strategists, both domestic and global, rarely acknowledge caste-driven inequalities as a defining constraint in India’s growth story.
This blind spot is also reflected in contemporary economic thought. For instance, Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba’s Breaking the Mould argues that India must develop high-value service and manufacturing jobs to fully harness its demographic dividend, with benefits spilling over to semi-skilled and unskilled workers. While compelling, this view overlooks the caste-based foundations of India’s economy. High-value sectors such as IT, A.I., banking, finance, and industry are overwhelmingly dominated by upper-caste groups, while more than 850 million Bahujans—nearly 80% of the Indian population—remain concentrated in casual and insecure labor under the guise of “labor flexibility.” This stark inequality underscores that any attempt to address India’s demographic dividend cannot be divorced from the social, economic, and political realities of caste. Unless these entrenched hierarchies are confronted, strategies to leverage India’s youthful population risk reinforcing rather than resolving the country’s deep social and economic divides.
Indian ‘Demographic Dividend’- Race against time
Time-bound investment in the human development of India’s majority Bahujan population can serve as a powerful engine for national wealth creation, a strong foundation for global trade and domestic markets, yielding multigenerational benefits. However, India’s demographic dividend is a time-sensitive opportunity. Historical examples, such as post-Second World War America’s ‘Baby Boomer’ generation, hold a great lesson for Indian policy makers. The American economy benefited immensely through its time-bound investment in post-World War II American society, i.e, ‘Baby Boomers’, with improvements in housing, education, skills development, local enterprise development, and social security initiatives. Labour Policy reforms like the New Deal and the G.I. Bill, along with hard-earned civil rights, ensured that the fruits of American prosperity would be accessible to the larger population, which boosted local production and consumption of various local goods and services, helping build the decades of American prosperity and a robust American middle class. We can understand that a young population advantage can eventually turn into a demographic liability. India faces a similar risk if the socially, educationally, and economically underdeveloped Bahujan youth remain neglected.
Without holistic human development of the Bahujan masses, India risks transforming into an aging nation burdened with an unhealthy, uneducated, unskilled, and unemployed swath of old population. This scenario could lead to severe domestic instability with wider geopolitical repercussions across South Asia and the Indo-Pacific, given India’s global diaspora, regional ties, and growing strategic influence. Recognizing the demographic dividend as a ‘Bahujan dividend’ and making strategic, long-term investments in Bahujan human development are essential to securing India’s future, and that of the world.
India amidst the Changing nature of the Global labor and value chain relationship
As the U.S. adopts aggressive tariff policies against China and multinationals move more aggressively towards a “China Plus One” strategy, India, with its vast labor pool and growing consumer market, stands at a crossroads of this shift. However, this potential will remain unrealized unless India centers its development strategy on the inclusion of its Bahujan workforce and consumer base. Without time-bound, Bahujan-centric development policies, the China Plus One opportunity may only reinforce existing inequalities in India. Furthermore, with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning increasingly automating routine jobs in manufacturing and services, the creation and sustenance of high-value creating jobs will depend on sustained, high-quality investments in education, healthcare, skills, and entrepreneurship for the Bahujan masses engaged in the informal and casual labour economy. Only then can India fully leverage this geopolitical moment for equitable and sustainable growth.
Indian Politics and the Bahujan Community
The structure and function of Indian caste system continue to shape everyday life across the country. Caste relations remain central to Indian politics from the local to the national level. Yet, mainstream political discourse—particularly at the state and national levels is dominated by the perspectives and interests of upper-caste elites. These dominant political narratives often reduce caste-based social and economic inequalities to mere ‘economic disparities’ or ‘regional developmental imbalances’. As a result, they pursue populist welfare programs, state subsidies, and technocratic policy solutions that lack the socioeconomic lived realities of caste discrimination faced by the Bahujan majority.
When mainstream political parties engage with Bahujan issues, they often do so by fostering long-term dependency on upper-caste-dominated institutions, rather than empowering autonomous Bahujan leadership. Independent Bahujan social, political, and cultural voices are frequently delegitimized through token representation—party cadres from the Bahujan communities who remain loyal to the political agendas of upper-caste leadership. This not only preconditions the policy narrative surrounding Bahujans but also deprives them of the ability to independently theorize and shape the foundational discourse on politics, economics, society, and culture in India.
India’s economic reforms have largely ignored caste realities, operating under the economic assumption that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” However, for many Bahujans, access to the boat itself was never granted.
Despite inclusive-sounding slogans such as Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (Development for All, Cooperation of All) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sarvodaya (Upliftment of All) by M.K. Gandhi, Garibi Hatao (Eradicate Poverty) by Indira Gandhi, or Antyodaya (Empowerment of the Last Person) by Deen Dayal Upadhyay, systemic caste barriers remain entrenched in everyday Indian life. Dalit, OBC, ST, and nomadic communities continue to be severely underrepresented in higher education, media, corporate, and the tech industry, revealing the limited impact of these populist promises. While post-Independence planned development and post-1990s liberalization have benefited certain sections of Indian society, they have deepened inequality and socioeconomic exclusion for many Bahujan communities, contributing to India’s growing income inequality. India’s economic reforms have largely ignored caste realities, operating under the economic assumption that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” However, for many Bahujans, access to the boat itself was never granted.
Conclusion
Today, India must reimagine development not as trickle-down growth but as structural transformation anchored in the rights, needs, and aspirations of the Bahujan majority, particularly its younger demographic. This transformation requires a unified national political movement centered on empowering Bahujans across social, economic, educational, and cultural domains. Critics may claim that such a Bahujan-centric development agenda is socially divisive. This is a false binary. Inclusive development does not undermine the interests of upper-caste or elite groups; it expands opportunities for all. Empowering Bahujans will grow domestic markets, boost aggregate demand, strengthen the middle class, and enhance national productivity and cohesion. The prosperity of Bahujans is not a zero-sum outcome; it is the key to India’s shared and sustainable prosperity.
Today, the Bahujan community in India is not a marginal constituency. It is the beating heart of young India’s growth story. Recognising the true nature of Young India, which is ‘Bahujan India’, is not just a national obligation for India; it is a strategic imperative for the world. Any reimagination of the global future and India’s role in it has to incorporate the central role of the Bahujan population. Ignoring such a substantial part of global humanity is not just morally indefensible; it is economically shortsighted for India and the world at large. India’s future and much of the world’s economic stability hinge on whether the Bahujan majority is seen as a problem to be managed or as the solution to a more just, prosperous global order. We must choose the latter. The time to act is now.