Welcome to India, the world’s largest democracy and, perhaps, the most organised form of anarchy on Earth. A nation where chaos is state-sponsored, but profits are fully privatised. Where stranded passengers, already broken by cancellations and confusion, are not comforted but hunted by airlines, hotels, and a system that treats crisis as business.
This should elicit empathy for the passengers’ suffering and inspire urgent action.
The ongoing meltdown caused by IndiGo’s mass flight cancellations reveals a harsh reality: India’s aviation and hospitality sectors prioritise profit over service, turning passengers into commodities and their helplessness into profit sources.
A National Embarrassment Unfolds
Thousands of passengers, including the elderly, families with infants, and students, were stranded in airports from Delhi to Bengaluru. Flights were cancelled with little or no notice. Check-in counters descended into chaos. And when people turned to nearby hotels seeking a bed for the night, they were welcomed not with empathy but with predation.
Delhi’s Aerocity hotels increased their prices to ₹25,000–₹30,000 per night, a rate so outrageous and shameless that even seasoned extortionists might blush. In a functioning regulatory system, this kind of exploitation during a crisis would prompt investigations and penalties.
In India, it draws applause from quarterly profit reports
The airlines were equally unhelpful. Data from Skyscanner showed Air India charging ₹1.02 lakh for a one-stop Delhi–Bengaluru journey. Akasa Air quoted ₹39,000 for the same trip. Clearly, when passengers are desperate, the industry’s first instinct is not to help but to exploit. In airports across India, the vultures descended, not with wings but with booking systems designed for opportunism.
Public outrage is entirely justified. Imagine the typical passenger, his holiday plans upended, his savings at risk, rushing from counter to counter, only to find that every other ticket costs more than his monthly salary. Every hotel room costs more than a vacation abroad. And amidst this despair, the so-called “service sectors” see a golden opportunity.
When Compassion Dies, Business Thrives
Hospitality once meant compassion. Today, it means calculation. It means, “Stranded, sir? Excellent. Please hand over your life savings at the reception.” This shift should inspire feelings of moral outrage and a desire for change among the audience.
The very word hospitality has been tarnished. Hotels that market themselves as “luxury retreats” become crisis profiteers. Airlines that claim to offer “world-class service” leave passengers stranded at terminal gates. Even call centres go silent, removing accountability as easily as they cancel bookings.
The undeniable truth is this: When the chips are down, India’s corporate apparatus does not consider duty or decency. It operates, in terms of demand and supply, like surge pricing and scarcity marketing. In that ruthless equation, human dignity doesn’t matter.
The Regulatory Vacuum: DGCA and the Ministry of Inaction
And while the chaos unfolds, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the body responsible for maintaining safety and order, continues to stumble through its duties like a sleepwalker juggling paperwork.
Where was the DGCA’s emergency response plan? Where was its contingency mechanism for large-scale flight disruptions? The lack of clear obligations for airlines to provide accommodation, refunds, or rebooking support shows a deep institutional failure rooted in bureaucratic indifference.
The great irony is that India aspires to be a global aviation hub while lacking even the most basic passenger protection measures. There are no enforceable price caps during a crisis, no provisions for emergency re-accommodation, and no real-time government oversight of mass cancellations. Instead, what exists is a loose federation of indifference, a government that conveniently invokes “market forces” whenever citizens are at their mercy.
When the DGCA fails, disaster becomes routine. This failure is not harmless; it is both moral and operational.
Governance by Disengagement — the Trader’s Republic
Much of this rot stems from a more profound political and economic philosophy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government prides itself on being “pro-business.” In practice, that ethos has transformed into unrestricted protection of corporate profits. The state has abdicated its duty to safeguard citizens, shifting the burden of survival entirely onto individuals.
India today functions like a Trader’s Republic, a land where regulation means facilitation, enforcement means optics, and exploitation implies efficiency. The spirit of the baniya raj, prioritising profit above all else, now permeates governance itself. Airline monopolies are tolerated; hotel cartels flourish; private operators dictate public costs. And instead of being held accountable, they are courted as “partners in progress”.
Crisis management has been outsourced to press conferences and hashtags, with ministers expressing ‘deep concern’ while departments remain inert, symbolising empathy without real action and worsening public suffering.
A state that refuses to regulate profiteering during a crisis is not pro-growth; it is anti-people. When businessmen manipulate a breakdown, and bureaucrats stay silent, governance becomes indistinguishable from collusion.
The Anatomy of a Failure
The aviation fiasco and hotel exploitation together reflect a systemic collapse comprised of four interlinked failures: –
Regulatory Paralysis. The DGCA, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, and the Civil Aviation Ministry tend to react only after issues arise. Their oversight mainly occurs post-crisis, with no real-time monitoring of escalating situations.
Corporate Exploitation. Airlines overbook, understaff, and price-gouge. Hoteliers algorithmically increase tariffs as soon as occupancy rises. There are no ethical brakes, only calculated greed.
Bureaucratic Disconnect. Decision-makers in ministries and regulatory offices are disconnected from public reality. Policies are created in air-conditioned conference rooms, without understanding field dynamics.
Public Powerlessness. Passengers lack an emergency helpline, guaranteed compensation, or an enforceable right to dignity. Consumer grievance cells operate at a snail’s pace.
Together, these failures create a perfect system of exploitation—where everyone benefits except the public.
Systemic Abandonment, not Mismanagement
This is not just mismanagement; it is systemic neglect. The nation’s administrative and corporate bodies have quietly agreed to let the market handle their moral decisions. But markets do not feel compassion. They only pursue profit.
A functioning society must distinguish between opportunity and exploitation. In a crisis, price caps, transparent communication, and guaranteed passenger assistance are not luxuries — they are obligations. Yet in India, these essentials are ignored because empathy has no lobbyists and regulation wins no elections.
Reforming a Predatory System
If India genuinely aims to become a people-friendly nation, it must create systems that are humane, predictable, and enforceable. The first step is recognising that air passengers are citizens with rights, not commodities on sale.
Essential reforms must include: –
Emergency Price Regulation. Parliament should enable DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to impose temporary price caps on airfares and hotel tariffs during crises.
Mandatory Re-accommodation. Airlines should be legally obligated to provide hotel accommodations, meal allowances, or alternative transportation to stranded passengers.
Transparent Communication. Penalties for airlines and hotels that withhold accurate information during disruptions.
Real-time Oversight. A unified digital control room for the Ministry to monitor cancellations, pricing anomalies, and passenger distress in real time.
Accountability. Automatic investigations into any airline or hospitality chain that breaches duty-of-care standards during emergencies.
Without these reforms, India will keep stumbling from one crisis to another, each time leaving behind humiliated travellers, corporations, and a government that makes statements but never offers solutions.
The Human Cost: India’s Dignity in Transit
Beyond the statistics lies the human story: the mother sleeping on airport floors with her children, the student missing an exam, the elderly couple left stranded, the worker watching his savings vanish into hotel price surges. These are not anecdotes; they are indictments.
A nation’s accurate measure is not seen in GDP charts or shiny airline brochures. It is seen in how it cares for its citizens when they are most vulnerable. In India, the stranded traveller has become the easiest target in a system built to favour the privileged, not the people.
In those chaotic airport terminals, the illusion of “India Shining” falls apart under the harsh glow of indifference. For every headline about billion-dollar investments in smart airports, a thousand passengers sleep on cold floors, betrayed by the very systems meant to support them.
The Political Reality
The BJP’s economic narrative promotes entrepreneurship but overlooks ethics. It champions efficiency but ignores empathy. Its governance model favours spectacle over substance — prioritising groundbreaking ceremonies over establishing ground rules. The outcome is a corporate-driven ecosystem where the public remains mainly on the defensive.
This government’s obsession with privatized optics—from airlines to airports—has caused it to forget the core of governance: accountability to citizens. When crises like the IndiGo meltdown happen, ministers tweet condolences while hotels and airlines quietly take their share.
The unholy trinity of corporate greed, bureaucratic indifference, and political abdication has eroded the nation’s conscience. What remains is an institution that perceives no conflict between national pride and public suffering.
Rise Beyond Exploitation
India’s reform journey must now shift from profit to principle. Economic growth without human dignity isn’t development; it’s moral decay disguised as GDP.
The distressed traveller deserves more than just sympathy. He needs a system that protects him by design, not by luck. India can only progress when its institutions regain empathy, when compassion becomes law, and accountability becomes natural.
Until then, every airport meltdown, every hotel price surge, and every cancelled flight will serve as a reminder that our greatest predators are not outside our borders, but within them, operating under the guise of business and shielded by political silence.
Because its air corridors or skyscrapers do not define a nation, it is judged by how it treats its citizens when they are stranded.
Only when India remembers this truth will it genuinely soar.