Gold is at an all-time high today. Eid is tomorrow. Navratri started this morning. Wedding season is in full swing. The timing couldn't be more complicated for Indian families.
Let's start with a number: ₹1,58,240.
That's what 10 grams of 24-carat gold costs in Delhi today. Add GST and making charges, and a 20-gram gold necklace that cost your family around ₹50,000 five years ago now costs close to ₹3.5 lakh.
Gold has nearly doubled in price in India in just over a year. And it hasn't stopped.
So why is gold so expensive right now? Short answer: when the world gets nervous, it buys gold. And the world is very nervous.
The West Asia conflict that erupted on February 27 shook financial markets globally. Investors pulled money out of stocks and moved into gold the oldest safe-haven asset in history. Global gold prices crossed $5,400 per ounce in early March, a level never seen before. India, which imports most of its gold and pays for it in dollars, felt every rupee of that surge.
It's not just the war. Central banks worldwide have been buying gold aggressively for over a year. China's central bank alone added to its reserves for 14 consecutive months. When institutions this large are hoarding gold, prices don't easily come down.
Here's how India got from there to here.
2020 -> Covid hits. Gold crosses ₹48,000 per 10g. Everyone calls it a peak.
2022 -> Russia-Ukraine war. Gold crosses ₹52,000. Another "record."
2025 -> +67% in a single year biggest annual gain since 1979. Crosses ₹1 lakh per 10g.
Today -> ₹1,58,240 per 10g. Up another 18% since January alone.
Now here's the uncomfortable part for Indian families specifically.
Today is the first day of Navratri. Eid-ul-Fitr is expected tomorrow. April through June is peak wedding season the time of year when Indians buy more gold jewellery than any other. Jewellers say footfall is still coming in, but buyers are spending the same budget on smaller, lighter pieces. The 50-gram set is quietly becoming a 25-gram set.
Meanwhile, if you already own gold a locker full of jewellery your grandmother passed down you're sitting on a small fortune. Gold loans are one of the fastest-growing products at banks and NBFCs right now, because people are borrowing against existing gold rather than selling it. Why sell an asset that might be worth even more next year?
That logic only works if gold keeps going up. And nobody not the RBI, not the analysts, not the jewellers actually knows if it will.
What they do know: the last five times someone said gold had peaked, it hadn't.
