New Delhi, June 25 -- With the rupee depreciating rapidly in the wake of the Iran war and India's oil and gas supplies choked by the Hormuz blockade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on air to urge citizens to curb expenditure on imports and foreign travel to conserve foreign exchange.

Around the same time, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which had been intervening in both the spot and forward markets to shore up reserves, announced measures to arrest the outflow of foreign currency.

This created an impression of India being in a 1991-like crisis. The country had almost run out of forex back then and had to deposit gold abroad as collateral to secure emergency loans. India is in no such situation today.

In early June, RBI governor Sa...