Did Indira Gandhi ask people not to buy gold in 1967? Here's the truth

A newspaper clip purportedly from the June 6, 1967 edition of The Hindu has gone viral on social media. The image shows a front-page headline claiming that then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi urged people not to buy gold while appealing for “national discipline” to save foreign exchange.

However, the newspaper has clarified that the image is digitally altered and not authentic.




“The first one is a digitally altered page being wrongly presented as the front page of The Hindu on June 6, 1967. The second is the actual page released that day. This is what social media is capable of; it can even alter the front page of India’s national English daily,” The Hindu journalist B. Kolappan wrote in a post on X.


The newspaper also issued a clarification on social media, saying: “A digitally altered image purporting to be a front page of The Hindu from June 6, 1967, is currently circulating on social media. We wish to clarify that this is not an authentic page from our archives. The Hindu urges readers to exercise caution and verify before sharing.”

Notably, the image gained traction after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for the judicious use of fuel, postponement of gold purchases, and restraint in foreign travel, among other measures aimed at strengthening the economy.



While the viral newspaper image is fake, the government led by Indira Gandhi did implement strict gold-control measures during that era.

The Gold Control rules prohibited citizens from holding gold in the form of bars and coins. Goldsmiths were not allowed to possess more than 100 grams of gold for jewellery-making purposes. Licensed dealers, depending on the number of artisans they employed, could hold only limited quantities of gold and were barred from trading with one another.

Then Finance Minister Morarji Desai introduced the Gold Control measures in 1962, which recalled gold loans issued by banks and banned forward trading in gold. In 1963, the production of gold jewellery above 14-carat purity was prohibited.

The stricter Gold Control Act 1968 was eventually enacted in 1968.