New Delhi, Aug. 11 -- Two images from the past month deserve attention. In the first, Ananya Birla, daughter of business baron Kumar Mangalam Birla, is in flood-hit upper Assam, helping deliver food, medicine and relief supplies directly to affected families. In the second, taken amid the NEET paper-leak protests that shook Delhi, she told agitating students in a recorded message that their courage had given her strength, while appealing for peaceful protest and compassionate dialogue.

Neither gesture is remarkable in itself. What's worth noting is how unremarkable they would be for anyone outside the billionaire class, and how rare they are inside it. The more familiar image of dynastic wealth in India today is one of distance, of a lif...