Austerity in Front, SUVs Behind

The bicycle has become the preferred prop of a political class allergic to structural reform. India’s latest answer to a global energy crisis has finally arrived, and it is beautifully uncomplicated: the public must suffer more gracefully.

As oil prices rise due to tensions in West Asia and fears around global supply routes, the political class has launched yet another national morality campaign disguised as governance. Citizens are being advised to reduce fuel consumption, avoid unnecessary travel, postpone foreign vacations, switch off air conditioners, and embrace public transport with patriotic enthusiasm. Somewhere in New Delhi, austerity has apparently become a substitute for energy policy.

The message is simple: if crude oil becomes expensive, the middle class must become spiritual.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seven-point appeal for restraint was delivered with the solemnity of a national emergency broadcast. The language was familiar: sacrifice, discipline, responsibility, simplicity. It sounded less like an economic strategy and more like a parent scolding children for leaving the fan on. The state, having spent decades failing to reduce India’s dangerous dependence on imported crude, has now discovered its most renewable resource: citizen guilt.

And then, right on schedule, came the theatre.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis appeared on a Royal Enfield motorcycle like the hero of an austerity biopic. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari boarded a public bus. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta took the Metro. Ministers pedalled bicycles down carefully sanitised roads while television anchors spoke of “leading by example” with the emotional intensity of mythological commentators describing divine sacrifice.

Social media exploded with admiration. Leaders on bicycles. Leaders in buses. Leaders among the people.

A moving spectacle indeed.

Naturally, behind every bicycle rolled a convoy large enough to invade a medium-sized district.

Pilot vehicles. Security SUVs. Escort teams. Police deployment. Backup staff cars. Traffic management units. Fuel-burning logistical caravans humming faithfully behind ministers performing simplicity for the cameras. A politician cycles two kilometres while fifteen diesel-powered vehicles crawl behind him like royal attendants escorting a ceremonial saint.

This is not austerity.

This is austerity with Z-category security.

The bicycle, in modern Indian politics, is no longer transport. It is a costume. It is a prop wheeled out whenever governments run out of answers but still require visuals. It allows leaders to cosplay as ordinary citizens for exactly long enough to trend online before returning to air-conditioned convoys and red-beacon governance.

And the timing, naturally, was impeccable.

Days after citizens were advised to consume less fuel in the national interest, petrol and diesel prices were increased by ₹3 per litre. Then came another quiet gift to the public: a further 90-paise increase. Apparently, inflation too now arrives in installments, like an EMI for patriotism.

The explanations came instantly. Global instability. Strait of Hormuz concerns. International market pressures. Supply disruptions. External compulsions. Governments have many words for economic pain when citizens are expected to absorb it. Curiously, these explanations disappear during election campaigns, when fuel prices suddenly become less global and more politically sensitive.

But the real story is not the price hike. It is the philosophy behind it.

India increasingly governs through behavioural sermons instead of structural reform. Every systemic failure is converted into an individual moral obligation. Pollution? Citizens should burst fewer crackers. Unemployment? Youth should become more resilient. Traffic chaos? People should become more patient. Fuel dependence? Families should apparently stop travelling and rediscover bicycles.

The state fails strategically. The citizen is instructed to compensate emotionally.

Meanwhile, the machinery of power continues consuming resources with imperial confidence. Election rallies resemble automobile exhibitions. Helicopters swarm political campaigns like mechanical locusts. VIP convoys halt traffic for kilometres so ministers can arrive at “Save Fuel” events on time. Massive stages glow under floodlights while ordinary citizens are lectured about switching off geysers and reducing “non-essential travel.”

Apparently, austerity is a sacred national duty only after the convoy has safely passed.

One almost admires the choreography of it all.

The leader performs humility.

The camera performs sincerity.

The anchor performs patriotism.

The citizen performs sacrifice.

And somewhere quietly in the background, the fuel meter keeps running.

For ordinary Indians, petrol is no longer just expensive. It has become psychological warfare. Delivery workers calculate routes like battlefield maps. Auto drivers stare at fuel gauges with the anxiety of ICU monitors. Salaried employees mentally subtract commuting costs before buying groceries. Families discuss weekend travel the way previous generations discussed luxury imports.

And in the middle of this economic suffocation, the political class arrives on bicycles to teach restraint. The insult is not merely financial. It is theatrical.

Citizens are expected to applaud gestures that would qualify as satire in healthier democracies. A minister cycling surrounded by armed SUVs is treated as an act of Gandhian simplicity rather than what it actually resembles: feudal minimalism with police escort.

The deeper tragedy is that India’s energy vulnerability is neither sudden nor unavoidable. For decades, governments have known the dangers of excessive crude dependence. Yet meaningful reform remains trapped beneath layers of political laziness and short-term spectacle. Expanding efficient public transport systems requires long-term investment. Electrifying government fleets requires administrative seriousness. Strengthening energy security requires planning beyond election cycles.

But none of that produces viral content.

A bicycle does.

And that is the central disease of modern governance in India: optics are no longer supporting policy. Optics have replaced policy.

Every crisis is transformed into a morality play where citizens are asked to consume less, expect less, travel less, and complain less while the state continues operating with bloated inefficiency. The burden of national adjustment always flows downward. Sacrifice is democratised. Privilege remains centralised.

Even the messaging reeks of improvisation. One day the public is assured there is no reason to panic. The next day fuel prices rise. Then another 90-paise increase quietly appears like a bureaucratic pickpocket slipping into the national wallet. Citizens are expected to absorb confusion with patriotic calm while the government oscillates between reassurance and revenue extraction.

People understand crises. What they increasingly resent is choreographed hypocrisy.

Real leadership during an energy emergency would not begin with symbolic bicycle rides. It would begin with uncomfortable reforms. Ruthlessly cut unnecessary VIP movement. Audit government fuel consumption publicly. Expand electric public transport at wartime speed. Reduce bureaucratic waste. Treat energy independence as a strategic mission instead of a ceremonial slogan.

But genuine reform is difficult. Symbolism is effortless.

And so India continues its great national performance: ministers pedalling briefly through barricaded streets while convoys idle respectfully behind them, burning fuel in honour of simplicity.

The country is not merely running low on affordable fuel.

It is running dangerously low on patience for political theatre disguised as sacrifice.