After the IndiGo fiasco: is the government to blame?

After the recent #Indigo fiasco, almost every gathering I’ve attended has revolved around the same topic.
And the most common sentiment? “The #government failed to ensure healthy #competition.”

Recently, a friend asked me this exact question.
So I asked him something in return.
“Are you okay with the government spending thousands of crores on #BSNL?”

His immediate response:
“Of course not! That’s a waste of #taxpayer money. We already have strong private players offering great services.”

Fair point.
Then I followed up.
“What if tomorrow, due to a tech failure or cartelisation, Airtel or Jio goes down… or starts charging absurdly high prices? What choice would customers have?”

He paused.
After a moment, he said:
“Okay, but #airlines are different. The government should have helped airlines that shut down one after another.”

And that’s where the contradiction lies.
If the government had bailed out a private airline, the same people would be on the streets asking:
- Why are taxpayers funding private losses?
- Why is the government picking winners?
- Why not let market forces decide?

The uncomfortable truth is this:
- In good times, we dismiss safety nets as wasteful.
- In bad times, we complain they don’t exist.

We ignore #resilience when everything is working and only remember it when systems start breaking.

The same psychology applies to #PersonalFinance.
Many #finfluencers argue that:
- #Emergencyfunds earn low returns
- Keeping money in safe instruments is “inefficient”
- It slows down wealth creation

But reality is simple.
There are only two kinds of people:
1️⃣ Those who have faced a real emergency
2️⃣ Those who haven’t, yet
Once you face one, the value of redundancy, buffers, and fallback options becomes crystal clear.

Whether it’s airlines, telecom, or personal finance, resilience always looks expensive… until it becomes indispensable.