A EUPHORIC narrative about India’s strong growth performance started getting constructed as soon as the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) put out the estimates of GDP for Q1 or the first quarter (April-June) of 2026-27 on August 31, 2026. The very next day, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) posted a backgrounder on India’s GDP performance, which boldly asserted that “India’s economy began 2026-27 on a strong note, with real GDP growth accelerating to 7.8% in Q1” and further claimed that this was “the highest Q1 real GDP growth during the four-year period from 2023-24 to 2026-27”.

The MoSPI’s original August 31, 2026, release through the PIB contained the following line: “Real GDP has been estimated to grow by 7.8% in Q1 of FY 2026-27 against the growth rate of 6.9% experienced during Q1 of FY 2025-26”. For those who remember August 29, 2025, when the GDP estimates for Q1 of 2025-26 were announced, there might be sense of deja vu because that press release of a year ago stated that “Real GDP has been estimated to grow by 7.8% in Q1 of FY 2025-26 over the growth rate of 6.5% during Q1 of FY 2024-25”. So, 7.8 per cent this year is great and represents an ‘acceleration’ because what was originally a quarterly GDP growth of 7.8 per cent last year has now been revised downward to 6.9 per cent.  One might legitimately ask what’s the excitement all about and how do we know this year’s 7.8 per cent will not eventually also be revised downward?

The Government might of course insist that the current year’s figures are based on the new GDP series which incorporate ‘improved’ methods of estimating GDP. The September 1, PIB Backgrounder in fact claimed that “Real GDP has been revised upwards for the previous three financial years. The revisions show that the first-quarter performance follows a stronger growth trajectory than previously estimated.” The first part of the statement is entirely meaningless and the second is completely false. What is referred to as ‘Real GDP’ is simply the GDP of any year estimated on the basis of the actual prices prevailing in that year (GDP at current prices or nominal GDP) converted into an estimate of what it would be if all prices were the same as that in some common base year. It is used only for purposes of separating the ‘real growth’ from the change in nominal GDP that is simply on account of changes in prices. The levels measured on the basis of two different base years are not comparable.

What can be compared though are the GDP’s at current prices based on the methods of the old and the new GDP series – and as it turns out, for all the years from 2022-23 onward and till 2025-26, the changes in methods have resulted in estimates of GDP that are significantly lower than measured previously. And when one compares the quarterly estimates, it is the Q1 estimates which show the greatest variation – with the new series estimates being lower by anything between 6.9 per cent and 7.6 per cent in the four years for which we have Q1 estimates from both series (2022-23 to 2025-26). So, should we also then revise further downwards our assessments of how the Indian economy was doing previously because the new estimates are more accurate? 

Even if one assumes that the PIB meant ‘real growth’ and ‘not real GDP’, the growth figures that it cites for the older series are at variance with the official data. Unless we are going to get not only a new GDP series but also new estimates of the old series, the fact remains that GDP of 2025-26 would have been higher than it is in the new series if the growth rates had been those of the older 2011-12 base year series. A lower nominal GDP and an average real growth rate that is not higher – that is the official data’s own indictment of its narrative.

What remains common between the new and the old series though is that despite there being a sharp slowing down of growth of nominal GDP in the last few years, the official estimates still throw up high ‘real’ growth rates because of an apparently simultaneous drop in the inflation rate. This is the inflation rate implicit in the GDP calculations, and it has been persistently lower than the consumer price index (CPI) based inflation rate. In Q1 of 2026-27 too, the implicit inflation rate is just 2.5 per cent while the CPI inflation rate stands at 3.9 per cent and the WPI inflation rate is 9 per cent. Even the five Producer Price Indices provided in the MoSPI’s Press Note show a sharp acceleration of inflation rates compared to Q1 of the previous year.

At the end of the day, though, statistics cannot change what the working people experience – rising costs of living, shrinking employment opportunities and stagnant and declining earnings from their work. This reality too can be seen in the statistics, but it is hidden behind the veil of the narrative. So, whose growth is it anyway?