Deep in India’s timeless love affair with gold, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is quietly urging people to slow their purchases. The country imports nearly every ounce of the precious metal, paying in hard U.S. dollars. After crude oil, gold ranks as the nation’s second-largest import.
Yet this glittering obsession exacts a steep toll. Heavy buying drains foreign-exchange reserves, widens the current-account deficit, pressures the rupee, and leaves fewer dollars for life’s essentials-oil and fertilizer.
The timing could not be more perilous. Since the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran erupted in late February 2026, global oil prices have shot skyward, ballooning India’s oil-import bill and tightening the noose on the economy at the worst possible moment.
Now, the appeal is widening beyond gold.
The Prime Minister is signalling something larger: a national campaign of restraint. Officials are increasingly speaking the language of conservation: fewer unnecessary drives, more public transport, more work-from-home routines, fewer dollars spent on luxury imports and foreign holidays.
Even the farms are part of the equation. India’s vast dependence on imported fertiliser components and edible oils has become an economic vulnerability. The message reaching rural India is blunt: cut waste, shift to solar pumps where possible, and reduce the country’s crushing subsidy burden.
At the heart of it lies an old instinct India has returned to in moments of crisis before: Swadeshi. Buy Indian. Travel less abroad. Save fuel. Save dollars. Not through compulsion, but through collective caution. Inside the North Block, policymakers know that in moments like this, economics becomes psychology. If enough Indians tighten their belts together, the nation buys itself time.
If 10% of Indians agree not to buy gold, what happens?
If one in 10 Indians heeds Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to skip gold jewellery this year, the country would save $7.2 billion in foreign exchange.
Those dollars would stay home, ready for oil, fertilisers and electronics.
The amount tops India’s entire annual defence export target and could fund two or three major semiconductor plants. Every imported necklace, every luxury holiday abroad, every unnecessary litre of fuel now feeds into the same pressure point, the rupee.
The mirror of history
When Leaders Played the Gold Card
When Nehru Asked for Gold
During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Jawaharlal Nehru skillfully tapped into Indians’ deep emotional attachment to gold. Facing a sudden Chinese invasion and severe financial crisis, he urged citizens to donate gold and money to the National Defence Fund.
The appeal triggered a powerful patriotic wave. Thousands of people, especially women, willingly sacrificed family jewellery.
Indira Gandhi led by example, donating 367 grams of her own gold. Punjab dominated the contributions under Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon, giving 252 kg of gold, including ancient coins from Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s era, and 46 percent of the total cash donations. The rest of India contributed just 5.3 kg. Remarkably, much of this gold remains untouched in the Reserve Bank of India’s vaults to this day.
When Indira Tightened Gold
In 1968, India went to war with gold. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Finance Minister Morarji Desai rolled out the toughest gold restrictions the country had ever seen. Under the Gold Control Act, ordinary Indians could no longer legally own gold bars, coins or primary gold. Jewellery alone survived the crackdown. Goldsmiths were squeezed under severe limits, allowed to hold barely 100 grams at a time, while dealers faced rigid controls over stock and trade.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (USPresident, 1933)
As America plunged deeper into the Great Depression in 1933, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, forcing citizens to surrender their gold coins and bullion to the government, tightening the state’s control over national wealth.
Benito Mussolini Italian PM, 1935
During Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and League of Nations sanctions, Mussolini’s “Gold for the Fatherland” campaign urged citizens to surrender wedding rings and jewellery, exchanging them for simple steel bands as a patriotic gesture.
Kim Dae-jung President S. Korea
During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, millions of citizens surrendered family gold jewellery and cherished heirlooms in a massive patriotic campaign to rescue the nation’s economy.
The Striking Stats!
Gold imports FY 2025-26: $72 bn a huge jump
April 2026: $5.63 bn
Total volume: $721 tn
Forex reserves: $690.7 bn (down sharply from $728 billion peak in late February)
Rupee Hit record low: `95.6 per USD
Households already hold: 25,000+tonnes of gold
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
