India, July 3 -- Six years. Five external shocks.

Covid in 2020. The Supply Chain Crisis in 2021. The Russia-Ukraine War in 2022. The Tariff War in 2025. And now, the Hormuz War in 2026. Each of these shocks was, on its own, capable of blowing a hole in the Centre's fiscal math. COVID did it literally, pushing the fiscal deficit past 9 per cent. The Supply Chain Crisis did it through imported inflation. 2022 did it through crude at $120. The Tariff War did it by threatening $48 billion of exports overnight. Hormuz did it by taking a fifth of the world's oil supply hostage for four months.

What deserves more credit than it gets is this: despite absorbing the four shocks before Hormuz, one after another, without room to recover in between...