Like most festivals around the world, the spring and autumn Navratras in India are immersed in traditions and folklore. When the Mother Goddess (Ma Durga, Sherowali or Chandi, depending on the place of worship) rides in on an elephant, she is believed to usher in prosperity. In 2004 though, the Devi arrived on a palanquin to warn of hard times, disasters and violence. She departed on a rooster, which star gazers will read to imply more sorrow and suffering. Through her nine-day sojourn the wars raging in West Asia, in Ukraine and Russia and the civil war in neighbouring Bangladesh only intensified. Protests over the gruesome rape and murder of a lady doctor marred the annual carnival around Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal.
The chant among worshippers was “pujo hobe, utsav hobena” (we will pray, but not celebrate). In 2023 the cumulative turnover of retailers, advertisers, pujo organisers (that entail expenditure on canopies, idols, decorations and stalls), restaurateurs et al were estimated at Rs 10,000 crore in Kolkata, which was only a fraction of the pan-India business. A restaurateur in Kolkata admitted that the crowds were relatively thin and celebrations were low key. Television reports confirmed that fewer idols had moved out of Kumhartoli (the potters’ hub in the city).
A chartered accountant in Chennai explained that Navratri was really a family celebration and tended to be quiet anyway in the south. The quietude ended abruptly after Dussehra with the onslaught of a torrential Northeast Monsoon. Schools shut down in Puducherry on 15 October as the rain clouds raced toward the Andhra coast. In the national capital region (NCR) that engulfs districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan along with the national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi, the Navratra heralds the season of parties, fairs and fetes. The rare Karwa Chauth party was also reported from some of the sky-touching apartment blocks that make up most of the urban conglomerate of the NCR. Dandiya nights on Navami and Diwali melas were heard of too, but everywhere the crowds were thin and spending seemed to take on the form of tokenism.
The reversal in consumption trends was evident as early as August. The Retailers Association of India (RAI) Business Survey showed a two per cent growth in retail sales year-on-year. In its World Economic Outlook published on 22 October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reiterated its growth projections for India at seven per cent, pointing out that the “pent-up demand” of the post pandemic period was now diminishing. The “pent-up demand” had been the basis of forecasts of consumption-driven growth over the last two financial years. According to the Economic Survey the Indian economy had grown by 8.2 per cent in real terms during the 2023-24 financial year.
The India growth story has often been described as “consumption driven”. The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) for instance, indicates that the Monthly Per Capita Household Expenditure (MPCE) of rural India had exploded by 40 per cent in real terms between 2011-12 and 2022-23. The MPCE of urban India had soared by 33 per cent during this spell. Statistical evidence of that surge in consumption is missing somehow in a year of strife and a myriad uncertainties.
The average monthly per capita consumption expenditure of the top five per cent of the Indian population is 7.6 times that of the MPCE of the bottom five per cent, according to the HCES. The top five per cent of high spenders no doubt keep the luxury goods markets sparkling in emerging India, along with a good part of the aspirational consumers of the middle income bracket. Festival sales, however, cut across all income groups, most of whom are spending far more on food this year.
A questionnaire BW Businessworld sent to economists in government and industry associations did not evoke any response. Among other things, we asked the pundits whether higher prices, particularly of cereals and vegetables discourage spending at festivals this year. The minimum support prices (MSP) granted to augment the income of farmers reflect in the prices of basic grain. Cereal prices are 8.73 per cent higher this year over the 7.42 per cent increase evident in the first six months of the last fiscal. Prices of pulses are dearer by 18.59 per cent in the first six months of the 2024-25 financial year.
Unseasonal rains in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh have destroyed onion crops. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) published in mid - October shows that onion prices have shot up by 74.97 per cent between April and September, compared to the first six months of the 2023-24 financial year (April to September 2023). Potato prices have risen by 73.69 per cent during this spell and fruits are 9.67 per cent dearer. Vegetable prices have been soaring and are 14.52 per cent higher in the first six months of the current fiscal, notwithstanding government efforts to keep transportation costs low.
Costs of fuel and power have gone down by (-) 0.39 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal after decelerating by (-) 7.35 per cent during the same period last year. Prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas have been moving downwards. Sliding prices of fuel could explain the 5.2 per cent spurt in vehicle sales between April and September, but the index of industrial production (IIP) in general slid by 0.1 per cent in August. As government data shows (please see charts) production and prices of most commodities have been on a slide. There is very little evidence of demand in the market, compelling retailers to peg their hopes on that festive spurt in sales.
Like the stock market indices, which are flickering like a candle flame in a storm, the commodity and retail markets too, may have turned risk averse in times of wars, strife and elections in the United States (and also state polls in India) that herald the uncertainty of a change of guard. The spike in prices of gold (towards Rs 77,000 for 10 grams for 24 carat) and silver (that touched Rs 1 lakh per kilogram) in mid-October, shows a tendency to seek safe havens for earnings.
The nine days of Navratra were bright and sunny in the national capital and its periphery, even though the crowds of shoppers were certainly missing. The autumn harvest brought news of a bumper crop of wheat, which at 262.48 lakh tonnes is already higher than the 262.02 lakh tonnes procured in the whole of the 2023-24 crop season and then the stubble fires on the crop fields of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh began to engulf the capital. As the air quality deteriorated over the northern horizon, the Delhi government announced the first phase of a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to combat air pollution. Firecrackers have been banned in Delhi till 1 January, 2025, promising not just a quiet Deepavali, but night skies bereft of fireworks all through winter and the season of weddings.
As Hamlet tells his close friend Horatio in William Shakepeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark:
“There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will”
