Last week when oil minister S Jaipal Reddy shed tears of true remorse while saying that “difficult and painful” decisions need to be taken, the common man could see it coming. But the intensity of it was wholly unanticipated. Now, after the record hike in diesel prices and the move to limit the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders per household to six per year, there is a festive mood in the market and gloom in households. But experts are upbeat. The government has finally done something to boost investors’ confidence, they say. This will greatly move the burden on the economy, some other experts opine. But where has the burden shifted is nobody’s guess. None of them need the subsidy on either diesel or LPG.

Also read: No policy paralysis when it comes to anti-people moves

Even detractors of the UPA II will have to acknowledge that it has never allowed either policy paralysis or coalition pressure to come in the way of hiking prices. When it has to be done, it is done. Experts have always hailed these moves. The common man is seldom quoted in the media because of a perceptible lack of superior intelligence. However, his tolerance with the burden has always been explored, exploited and extolled by the Manmohan Singh government. 

While fuel pricing in India remains as explicable and clear as the Riemann hypothesis, the government has always showed exceptional understanding and compassion for the ever-impoverished oil companies and trusted the abundance of aam aadmi to bail them out.

For the lack of a car and, more importantly, clairvoyance, the man in the street does not regret the hike in diesel prices. The prices of commodities have already hit through his dilapidated roof and he cannot immediately believe they can go up further. They will. And he will take it again in his slow and heavy strides. But what pinches him the most is a thought about his house hearth. What happens to this after his yearly quota of six cylinders exhausts in six months? This was the cheapest mode of cooking so far. Buying a bottle of kerosene in the black market in a mofussil will make our political leadership realise how corruption isn’t just their copyright anymore.  

Experts would argue the hike is in his interest; inflation would be eased; prices will go down. The aam aadmi, given the moron that he is, will not believe it. He has lived his life in the same street, bought rations from the same shop, paying up for the previous month’s supplies and ordering the current month’s; but has never ever seen the price of anything going down. Like his acceptance of the grey in his hair and creases on his skin which came much before time, he will take this hike as his fate accompli. A few days later, he will forget it and another few days later, he will be ready for another.