The GST Council’s latest decisions have been heralded as the most consequential overhaul of India’s indirect tax regime since the system’s introduction. The consolidation of slabs and rationalisation of rates is no small achievement.

It offers the promise of tempering inflation, buoying sagging consumer sentiment, and adding a modest but welcome push to economic growth. Importantly, it does so without derailing the government’s carefully guarded path of fiscal consolidation. At roughly Rs 48,000 crore, the cost of this “Diwali gift” is a fiscal outlay that remains eminently manageable.

Timing, however, is as crucial as substance. The so-called “Trump tantrum” of escalating tariffs from the United States has already begun to ripple through the global economy. India, like other open economies, cannot escape these headwinds. By rationalising the GST, policymakers have sought to strengthen the domestic demand engine and create a buffer against external turbulence.

But if history is any guide, crises have always been India’s reform catalysts—the balance of payments collapse of 1991, the global financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic of 2020. The tariff surge from Washington should be treated in that same category: a moment to move decisively, not incrementally.

The central lesson is straightforward. What cannot be controlled abroad must be counterbalanced at........

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