New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- Gold has always held a singular place in India's social and economic imagination. It is ornament, investment, inheritance and informal insurance all at once. Yet, this festive and wedding season, India confronts a paradox.

In major centres, the price of 24-karat gold has broken above Rs.1 lakh per 10gm, with expectations that it could push toward Rs.1.4 lakh in the near term. Still, households continue to buy-driven partly by ritual and partly by the conviction that high prices only validate its safe-haven role.

That cultural attachment remains powerful, but it now collides with the strains of macroeconomics, business adaptation and household constraints.

Globally, the rally has been underpinned by safe-haven deman...