How devaluation is escalating inequality in India

Devaluation is an increase in in the domestic currency prices of foreign exchange e.g. Dollar in terms of Rupees. As an effect of devaluation there is increase in the relative prices of imported goods in the devaluating country and reduces relative prices of export from the country.

Ex. If a country A having a fixed exchange rate and facing a trade imbalance, as a policy measure the country A will devaluate it's currency which causes exports cheaper and exports will rise. Also the imports will get reduced due to now the price has increased for importing goods.

Devaluation is an expenditure switching policy, a major instrument for dealing deficits. Devaluation raises the relative prices of foreign goods causing imports to fall and exports to rise.

Devaluation of currency in India:

India was following a fixed rate system;(exchange rate is being determined by the government not by the demand and supply forces) till 1975 having partial controls over the currency market till 1993, the year when as per IMF standards we liberalized our entire economy.

• 1947: 1 US$ = 1.00 INR 
• 1948: 1 US$ = 4.79 INR.(Lack of funds)
• 1965: 1 US$ = 4.79 INR.(Ind-China and Ind-Pak war)
• 1966: 1 US$ = 7.57 INR.
• 1971: 1 US$ =  8.39 INR.
• 1985: 1 US$ =  12.0 INR.(Oil shock in 1973, OPEC decided to cut oil production)
• 1991: 1 US$ =  17.9 INR.(CAD, economic crisis)
• 1993: 1 US$ =  31.7 INR.
• 2000: 1 US$ = 45.0 INR.(Nuclear test)
• 2013: 1 US$ = 60.0 INR.(Global Financial slowdown of 2007–08 &
  European sovereign-debt crisis, 2011)
• 2017: 1 US$ = 65.0 INR.(High CAD and BoP crisis)
• 2018: 1 US$ = 74.0 INR.

But this is not the real devaluation.

Devaluation is different than real devaluation in sense that it is not causing reduction in prices of countries own goods, when devaluation reduces prices of countries own goods relative to foreign goods known as Real Devaluation. Since there is no real devaluation in the country, keeping the real wage fixed the real income or the net disposable income of the wage earners and middle class constituting 45% of workforce get reduced. This unknowingly forces them to spend more part of their income on essentials can be called as Economic hidden hunger. And the top one percent having 73% of national wealth keep on cherishing and demanding more of dollars again leading to a cyclical imbalance in BoP.

1%	The top 10% of the Indian population holds 77% of the total national wealth. 73% of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1%, while 67 million Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw only a 1% increase in their wealth.
70	There are 119 billionaires in India. Their number has increased from only 9 in 2000 to 101 in 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new millionaires every day.
10x	Billionaires' fortunes increased by almost 10 times over a decade and their total wealth is higher than the entire Union budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19, which was at INR 24422 billion.
63 M	Many ordinary Indians are not able to access the health care they need. 63 million of them are pushed into poverty because of healthcare costs every year - almost two people every second.
941 yrs	It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year. (Refer https://www.oxfam.org/India: Extreme inequality in numbers)

References:

https://www.oxfam.org/

https://www.data.worldbank.org/

Macroeconomics: Dornbush R., Fischer S., Startz R., McGraw Hill Publications

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/

And self analysis