Why India’s Wealth Has Been Walking Out for 2,000 Years - Gold Then, Millionaire Now

For much of the last two millennia, the region that is now India was one of the world’s largest economies. Yet again and again, a striking pattern appears: India generates wealth, and a significant part of that wealth ends up outside its borders - once as gold and resources, today as globally mobile millionaires and capital.

This is not a sentiment-driven narrative but a sequence of trade flows, colonial extraction, external accounts and migration data, right up to 2025.
Economic reconstructions by Angus Maddison and later projects show that the Indian subcontinent:

• Accounted for around 30–33% of global GDP between 1 CE and 1000 CE
  
• Still held roughly 24–27% of world output around 1500–1700, before the high colonial period
  

By contrast, India’s share of global GDP is about 3.7% in 2025 (nominal), with an economy of roughly $4.19 trillion, ranking 5th in the world.

So historically, India moved from being a central node in the world economy to a mid-sized but fast-growing emerging power today.
Ancient trade between Rome and India was intensive enough that Roman writers complained about it openly. Pliny the Elder wrote that India, China and Arabia together drained the Roman Empire of around 100 million sesterces a year, largely in exchange for luxuries like spices and fine textiles.

Archaeology and numismatic finds show large numbers of Roman gold coins in South India, confirming that India consistently attracted bullion.
The long-term picture:

• Trade surpluses in goods brought gold and silver into India.
  
• Warfare, conquests and tribute periodically moved wealth out of India to Central Asia, West Asia and later Europe.
  

Even at this early stage, the pattern is visible: India as a magnet for bullion, but also a target from which that bullion could be extracted.
On the eve of large-scale European domination:

• India still produced roughly a quarter of global output in 1700.
  

By the mid-20th century:

• India’s share of world income had fallen to about 3% by 1950, down from ~27% in 1700, while Britain’s share rose sharply over the same period.
  

Economic historians detail several mechanisms of resource transfer under the British Raj:

• Trade distortion and protectionism: Indian textiles faced heavy barriers in Britain; British goods received favourable access to Indian markets.
  
• Use of India’s export surplus to pay for Britain’s imports and imperial expenses elsewhere, rather than allowing India to accumulate bullion or reserves itself.
  
• Modern re-estimates by Utsa Patnaik and others suggest enormous net transfers from India to Britain over 1765–20th century, though the exact dollar figure is debated.
  

Whatever the exact number, the direction is clear: India’s relative weight in the world economy collapsed during the colonial period, even as British output and capital stock rose.
After 1947, India started from a low base in income and industrial capacity. Through state-led development and later liberalisation:

• India became the 5th-largest economy by 2025, with growth of about 7% in 2024 and a projected 6.5% in 2025, according to IMF and national estimates.
  

But the external side still shows familiar features:

• India is a major net importer of key commodities, especially crude oil and gold.
  
• External shocks in oil prices, interest rates and capital flows can put pressure on the rupee and current account.
  

So while growth is robust, the structure of the external account remains sensitive to both energy and precious metal imports.
Indian households and temples are estimated to hold around 25,000 tonnes of gold, among the largest private holdings in the world. Recent valuations put this at roughly $3.8 trillion in 2025, close to 90% of India’s GDP at current prices.
On the flow side:

• A government-linked study using ITC and trade data notes that gold imports rose from $45.54 billion in 2023 to about $51.8 billion in 2024, a 13.7% jump in value.
  
• World Gold Council data indicate that year-to-date 2025 gold imports total about $51 billion, up 16% year-on-year, even though physical volumes (≈559 tonnes) are down 12% because of higher prices.
  
• The Reserve Bank of India’s own gold reserves stood at around 880.18 tonnes in Q3 2025, slightly up from earlier quarters.
  

Economically, that means:

• Gold is both a household safety asset and a persistent driver of foreign exchange outflow, particularly when prices rise.
  
• India’s external position is still shaped by a longstanding preference for storing wealth in non-productive, imported bullion.

In the 21st century, the mobile unit of wealth is not just gold; it is high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and their capital.

According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2025 and coverage in Indian financial media:

• India saw an estimated 5,100 millionaire outflow in 2023,
  
• about 4,300 in 2024, and
  
• is projected to lose 3,500 millionaires in 2025 (net), the lowest exodus since the pandemic but still one of the largest in the world.
  

Globally, Henley estimates that around 142,000 millionaires will relocate in 2025, with the UAE and US among the biggest gainers; India sits on the outflow side of this matrix.

Two key nuances:

• India remains a fast-growing wealth market; it creates more new millionaires than it loses, so the absolute number of rich households is still rising.
  
• But the persistence of outflows — even at a declining rate — is tracked internationally as a signal about long-term confidence, policy predictability and quality of life.
  

In effect, where gold once sailed out on ships, wealth creators today fly out on visas.
Analyst commentary around the Henley 2025 report and Indian coverage identify a consistent set of drivers:
Push factors from India

• Tax complexity and planning constraints, especially on global income, succession and family wealth structures.
  
• Perceived regulatory uncertainty and compliance burdens for businesses and large portfolios.
  
• Desire for education, security, health care and mobility options for families that are more easily accessed with foreign residence or citizenship.
  

Pull factors from destination countries

• Investor-friendly tax regimes and “golden visa” programmes in places like the UAE, Portugal, Greece, Singapore and certain island jurisdictions.
  
• Strong legal protections for capital, flexible corporate structures and estate planning tools.
  

This doesn’t mean millionaires “abandon” India economically — many keep businesses and investments in the country - but their legal and tax base shifts abroad, changing where their wealth is ultimately recorded, managed and often passed on.
Over two millennia, three recurring facts stand out:

• From about one-quarter to one-third of world GDP for much of 1–1700 CE, India’s share fell below 2–3% by mid-20th century, closely tracking periods of external extraction and adverse trade regimes.
  

• From about one-quarter to one-third of world GDP for much of 1–1700 CE, India’s share fell below 2–3% by mid-20th century, closely tracking periods of external extraction and adverse trade regimes.
  
• Gold and silver movements in antiquity,
  
• Documented colonial transfers under the British Raj,
  
• Post-1991 dependence on imported energy and gold, and
  
• A 2023–25 surge in gold import values (to around $51–52 billion a year) all reflect how external flows continue to influence India’s macro position.
  

• Gold and silver movements in antiquity,
  
• Documented colonial transfers under the British Raj,
  
• Post-1991 dependence on imported energy and gold, and
  
• A 2023–25 surge in gold import values (to around $51–52 billion a year) all reflect how external flows continue to influence India’s macro position.
  
• In 2025, India will likely see around 3,500 net millionaire departures, still one of the highest outflows globally, even as it remains a fast-growing wealth market.
  

2. In 2025, India will likely see around 3,500 net millionaire departures, still one of the highest outflows globally, even as it remains a fast-growing wealth market.
   

Taken together, 2025 does not show a collapsing India — it shows a rapidly growing, increasingly sophisticated economy that still has to solve an old structural problem: how to retain more of the wealth it creates, whether that wealth is measured in gold bars, productive capital, or globally mobile individuals.