Anand Teltumbde: Modi is asking Indians to make sacrifices for an economic crisis he oversaw
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There comes a moment when the gap between propaganda and reality becomes too large to conceal with slogans. India appears to have reached that moment with Narendra Modi’s recent appeal for austerity. Urging citizens to reduce fuel consumption, avoid foreign travel, work from home, and even postpone gold purchases, Modi invoked wartime sacrifice and recast economic hardship as patriotism in the face of the Iran war.
The oil shock is real. India imports nearly 85%-88% of its crude requirements, much of it through the Strait of Hormuz. Every $10 rise in crude prices increases India’s import bill by roughly $13-$15 billion annually, widens fiscal and current account deficits, weakens the rupee, and fuels inflation through transport, fertiliser, logistics, and food prices.
But the crisis Modi asks Indians to sacrifice for is not fundamentally a product of the Iran war. The war has only exposed India’s vulnerabilities. A structurally stronger economy could have absorbed an external shock far better.
Instead, India enters this crisis weakened by demonetisation, chaotic GST implementation, stagnant manufacturing, high unemployment, declining private investment, rising inequality, institutional erosion, and governance driven more by spectacle than economic strategy.
Serious trouble
The most politically damaging response to Modi’s austerity appeal came not from the opposition but from Surjit Bhalla, long regarded as sympathetic to the government...