Five External Shocks Since 2020. The Deficit Never Passed 2.2%.

The chart this rebuilds prints the 2004–13 average as −2.2%. The IMF’s own ten values for those years average −2.27, which is −2.3 to one decimal. Its other two averages — the NDA figure and the full-period total — both reconcile exactly, so this is one slip rather than a pattern. Every figure here comes from the IMF DataMapper API directly, not from reading the picture.

India’s current account is, to a first approximation, an oil import bill, and the correlation with Brent is -0.66 year by year. The obvious objection to the record above is that dollar oil has been cheaper since 2014 — $64 to $75 a term against UPA 2.0’s $94. But India buys oil in dollars and earns in rupees, and the rupee cost per barrel is what actually lands on the current account. On that measure 2009–13 is the third cheapest of the five terms, not the dearest: ₹4,826 a barrel, against ₹5,524 under Modi 2.0 and ₹6,382 under Modi 3.0. Every year since 2020 has been dearer in rupees than UPA 2.0 ever was.

The exchange rate is not an external shock in the way the oil price is — a weaker rupee partly reflects domestic inflation and policy, so some of that higher rupee bill is self-inflicted. And ₹ per barrel is nominal: India’s economy is far larger in rupee terms than it was in 2009, so the same rupee figure sits against a much bigger denominator. The cleanest single measure would be net oil imports as a share of GDP, which is not on this page.

Brent stayed above $108 while the deficit fell from 4.8% to 1.7% — so oil did not do it. The deficit went from $87.8bn in 2012–13 to about $32bn the next year, a swing of roughly $56bn. Gold and silver imports fell from $55.8bn to $33.5bn over the same two years, which is 40% of the correction — the largest single piece, but not the majority. The rest came from a rupee that fell from about 54 to 68 to the dollar, and from import compression as growth slowed to a decade low. The curbs themselves — 10% duty, the 80:20 re-export rule — drove a jump in smuggling and were withdrawn in late 2014. Separately: the RBI’s FCNR(B) and overseas-borrowing swap windows raised $22.7bn by 20 November 2013. That was good crisis management, but it is the capital account — it financed the deficit, it did not reduce it. The two get conflated constantly.

It opens in 2004, immediately after three surplus years — India ran +0.7%, +1.2% and +2.3% in 2001, 2002 and 2003. And it closes on 2026, an IMF projection rather than an outturn, marked with an asterisk throughout. Years are assigned to whoever held office for most of them; every general election in this window fell between April and June, so a change year goes to the incoming government.