Should luxury be restricted to the fortunate few?

Majumdar and Shah wrote about the "Problems of being caught in the circle of conspicuous consumption" in India. They cited the example of a woman called Sheila who needed an urgent loan for a surgery even though both she and her husband have high paying jobs, live in a four-bedroom apartment in Bangalore and buy branded goods. Why is Sheila unable to finance the surgery herself? "The aspiration to live an extravagant life and the desire of immediate gratification and hedonistic expectations has led to a consumption binge with lesser practical utility." Which means that Indians are spending more on useless things. With a population of around 300 million the US has around 1.2 billion credit cards, while with a population of 1.3 billion people India has just about 25 million credit cards. In the financial year of 2015, Rs 1.92 trillion was spent through credit cards in India, whereas in 2014 nearly $5 trillion were spent through credit cards in the US. But even with this meager spending on credit cards outstanding debt is rising, causing consternation among financial experts. Why? Because Indians earn so little. A survey showed that the top 10% of Indians earn 29% national disposable income, which is slightly lower than 33% earned by the bottom 60%. About 71% of urban and 68% of rural workers have no work contract, which means they have no job security or benefits, like pensions and healthcare. The government encourages private consumption. Why? "In most nations, consumption expenditure accounts for 60-85% of their GDP - in India, private consumption accounts for 56% of GDP." So, Indians are not really splashing out, are they? "According to the latest data on 'Household Indebtedness' by India's National Sample Survey Office, nearly one in every three rural households and over one in five urban households are in debt. The share of debt for productive purposes, such as loans toward business, fell from 42% in 1981 to 18% in 2012 among urban households as spending on weddings and purchasing household assets increased." Savings rate in India has fallen from 34.6% of GDP in 2011-12 to 32.3% in 2015-16, and private investment is dropping, wrote Prof T Jayakumar. Is it because Indians are having to spend a greater portion of their income on essentials, such as food, education and healthcare, reducing demand for other goods? The Delhi government has announced free surgeries and investigations in private hospitals for all Delhi citizens if government hospitals are unable to provide the same within one month. Already queues at government hospitals are so long that people pay hospital staff to jump to the front. A genuinely ill person will have no chance. Trust in government is so low that people, including the poor, buy gold to protect themselves against rising prices, falling interest rates and lack of services. Very few can resort to "conspicuous consumption" that Majumdar and Shah find so distasteful. We are too poor.