The 'Austerity' Show: Rules For Thee, But Not For Me

“Eduti Varriki Cheppetanduke Neethulu Unnayi” “Sermons are for others”- A Telugu saying”

Above Telugu saying, a popular idiomatic equivalent to “"Rules for thee, but not for me” is usually used to call out hypocrisy of the people who don't practice what they preach.

The New India’s leadership has turned above wisdom into a national sport.

Napoleon once said the stress of worrying about a problem is often worse than the problem itself, and nothing proves that like the India’s supreme leader’s lecture on 'frugality' that left his subjects more anxious than the actual crisis.

Fresh off the high of election season, Indian Supreme Leader has emerged with a seven-point plan for his common subjects to practice "austerity" because of the West Asia crisis.

He had nonchalantly asked his gullible subjects to stay home and save fuel, which is a hilarious request coming from a guy who just spent weeks burning through jet fuel and endless convoys for election parades. And, of course, he’s already packing his bags for his next grand world tour.

It’s a bold move, for, one day his subjects were told they are the world's fourth-largest economic superpower, and the next, they are told to dim the lights and stop driving. Apparently, being a superpower means having the strength to watch its leaders campaign in luxury, while its people are told to embrace the "minimalist" lifestyle.

Ever since the Supreme Leader stepped in to "save" the nation, he’s turned "National Sacrifice" into a mandatory hobby for the masses.

It started with guilt-tripping people out of their LPG subsidies and peaked with the classic line: "If a soldier can stand at the border, why can’t you stand in a bank line for a few days?" He even had them out on their balconies clanging steel plates like a symphony of the absurd, while millions of migrant workers were left to walk home in the heat. It’s a masterclass in leadership: he provides the script, and the people are asked to bear the suffering..Err…National Sacrifice.

Asking ordinary Indians to work from home, ditch their travel plans, and skip the gold, all to "save the nation", is a tough sell while the ruling elite continues their high-flying tours and energy-guzzling spectacles on the public dime.

It’s a bold move to ask citizens to pinch pennies when the government’s own wallet seems to have a bottomless leak.

This sudden pivot to "emergency mode" signals that the economy is about to hit a wall, a heads-up that would have been far more useful months ago, before the election posters were even printed.

But of course, the alarm only rang after the 2026 assembly polls in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were safely in the bag. Is this another way asking the people to brace up for huge “fuel price hike”?

Critics argue this is the ultimate "pump and dump" scheme of governance: the ruling elite burns through state resources to throw a massive election party, and only after they’ve secured the guest list for the next five years do they hand the cleanup bill and the "austerity" chores to the public. It’s a classic bait-and-switch: they get the lavish campaign, and people get the bill for their mismanagement.

Naturally, the opposition is having a field day, pointing at this "sermon" as the total breakdown and the proof of the failure.

It’s the ultimate comedy of errors: citizens of the world’s "fourth economic superpower" are now being treated like toddlers and told what they can buy or where they’re allowed to walk under the pretext of “National Sacrifice”.

It’s a brilliant tactical manoeuvre, wherein, if you make the people responsible for "saving" the economy, you never have to take the blame for breaking it in the first place.