India had lagged behind large parts of the world on most of the meaningful indicators for several decades, but it had also made improvements, even if these may have been slow. Under Modi, this has actually been reversed in several areas, including in the HDI indicators, where improvement first plateaued and then deteriorated as the effect of executive strokes like demonetisation and the 2020 national lockdown hit the poor. The full impact of the actions from above was visible on the population.
