Demonetization: The essential objectives

[Disclaimer: All the views expressed in here are personal and do not reflect the opinion or the position of the organization that the author works for.] 

It is becoming evident from the long lines at ATMs across India, and the troubles faced by the farmers and small-time traders, that the implementation of the demonitization initiative has been quite poor.  Clearly, it could have been planned better and executed better.  As Supreme Court of India warned, if things don’t improve, we could see riots in this country.

But the poor implementation is not good enough reason to conclude that this exercise will not achieve its objectives.

So what are those objectives? 

Unlike most people in India, including those who actually introduced this initiative – namely the Prime Minister and his team, I don’t have unrealistic expectations from the current initiative of denotification of the existing 500 and 1000 rupee notes.  

According to me, the objective of this exercise is not that much about curbing counterfeit money, nor about trying to ‘get out’ the black money from their hideouts.  Yes, the introduction of new currency notes would obviate the problem of counterfeit notes, but only for a while, because if the enemy is insistent on copying and releasing even the new notes, they could do so, given some amount of time.  And, unlike what most people hope, there is no need for black money to be deposited into the banks.  If that money cease to exist, it is good enough.  The shortfall in circulation or non-existence of the black money is good enough for the Government to infuse more printed notes, thereby giving itself a fillip in public spending on infrastructure projects. 

Demonitization: Will it work?

I hear lot of criticism launched against Demonitization.  I cite some of them here.

‘Poor people are suffering’

‘It is the common man who is hurt.  Look at the long lines at each ATM.  They are standing there for hours’.

And yet the narrative is not as simple as it sounds.  When these people standing in line at ATM are asked if they are facing trouble, almost all of them say, ‘Yes’.  But when asked if this move is good, they all say, ‘Yes’.  Then they add, ‘This is an inconvenience, but in the larger good, this is OK.  On the whole, we support this initiative from Prime Minister Modi’.

So, it all depends on what part of narrative you want to hear.  If you hear only the first part, it does clearly say that people are inconvenienced to a great extent.  But if you hear the second part, common man endorses Modi’s demonitization. 

Did Government bungle up its implementation?

Yes. 

First, it did not prepare itself with enough new rupee notes it wanted to introduce.   It should have had enough stock with it before announcing the demonitization of old notes.   The paucity of new notes is creating lot of trouble to many businesses, including the common man.

Second.  Why did they not create 500 and 2000 rupee notes the same size as old 500 and 1000 rupee note? That would not have required the calibration of ATMs which is currently underway, and is causing the impediment in delivering cash to people.

It definitely looks like Indian economy has come to a standstill.  However, given few more days, with more new notes brought into circulation, the problem of paucity of notes will fade away and normalcy will be restored.  

Demonetization: Defining moment in Indian History

I am not a Modi-Bhakt. In fact, I have been a big critic of Narendra Modi, when it comes to his tolerance of religious intolerance in this country.  And yet, today I stand in support of his historic decision to invalidate the legal tender for the existing 500 and 1000 rupee notes that are in circulation.

Those who meet me usually ask me for a solution to some of the problems that we face in India, probably because I tend to maintain the attitude that I do have a solution to such problems ;-).  So, over the last many years, when anyone had asked me, ‘How do we root out black money in the country?’ my answer was, ‘In fact, the solution is quite simple.  I would make the 500 and 1000 rupees notes invalid as of today.  And everyone has to come to the bank to exchange and get new notes starting tomorrow.’

The discussion would then usually go into whether the political leadership in India would ever do it.  The answer would be – ‘it is not a very pragmatic decision for a political leader, he would invariably alienate most of his colleagues in politics, because politics in India is funded mostly by the black money.   One would really need balls to do it, and our politicians rarely have that’.

And yet, three days ago, I get a call from a good friend.  ‘Watch the news’, he said.  Unfolding before me was the one of the most defining moments in Indian History.   Prime Minister was announcing the demonitization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

In 1947, Nehru in his famous Tryst with Destiny speech, said:

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

On 8 Nov 2016, Modi in his speech announcing demonetization of old 500 and 1000 rupee notes said:

There comes a time in the history of country’s development when a need is felt for strong and decisive stand… there come moments, those moments come but rarely.

And we will all remember this moment twenty years from now, where India stepped from the old into new.  Where an age ends, and a new age begins. 

And yet I find some criticism, some naysayers.  

How could you not celebrate this moment?

Yes, there would be some hiccups.  Never will such a transition be smooth for everyone.  When Telangana was struggling for statehood, many people complained of inconvenience caused by strikes and bandhs, and I asked, would you rather allow a large section of people not have their freedoms just because you are inconvenienced?

Like how a small child cries in pain when given vaccination for her own good, these are nothing but small inconveniences that we face right now, but we would have found a cure to curbing black money in this country.

Let’s celebrate.  And take inspiration to do something bold!

This message is for all state governments across the country.  Pass those bold bills, take those bold decisions.  Go against the tide, piss your colleagues, challenge the status quo!  Reform, rectify, improve, break down, invent, be creative! 

Carpe Diem!

For a change, be bold!

Thank you, Mr. Modi. 

Coming from people like us, you should take it as a compliment! ;-)

Why do our roads and cities continue to fail us?

In August 2015, we landed in Taiwan a day after Category-5 Super Typhoon Soudelor made a landfall with destructive winds reaching 215 km/h, with torrential rains causing widespread damage and disruptions, accumulating 632 mm of rain in 12 hours, where a record-breaking 5 million households lost power on the island, and yet the roads were intact, and the city came back to life within a day.  Looking at how well the city looked and functioned, we couldn’t believe that they had experienced such a powerful typhoon the day before. 

In September 2016, Hyderabad city faced a 24-hour long rain fall from the active south-west monsoon, accumulating 164 mm of rain, but that brought the city to a standstill, resulting in inundation of several localities, breaching of drainage system, with many of the roads completely damaged, causing hours of traffic jams across the city.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, storms, flash floods - these are some of the extreme but routine natural weather conditions that hit most parts of the world.  Developed countries tend to face them as much as any other country.  And yet, the roads in those countries don’t get damaged the way Indian roads take a hit after a single large rain.  Those cities don’t get inundated and don't come to a grinding halt so easily as Indian cities do. 

Salman Khan felt like a ‘Raped Woman’

Recently, Salman Khan in an interview said he felt like a raped woman.

“While shooting, during those six hours, there’d be so much of lifting and thrusting on the ground involved. That was tough for me because… When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman.”

The twitterati went abuzz taking umbrage to this remark: One person asks, ‘how does he know what a raped woman feels’.  Amir Khan thought it was ‘insensitive’. Kangana Ranaut thinks his comments were ‘horrible’.  Anurag Kashyap felt they were ‘very thoughtless’, while Freida Pinto takes ‘offence’.

Such a reaction is quite understandable.  This is definitely an insensitive remark in the modern context.  Now, with so much awareness in gender discrimination, sexual harassment of women, and child abuse, these statements sound very insensitive and callous.

Yes, insensitive and callous, statements of bad taste.  Agreed.

But are these statements illegal?

All of a sudden everyone is anti-national

I have not seen so many anti-nationals in my lifetime.  It’s like raining traitors this season in India.  All of a sudden, there are traitors and anti-nationals everywhere in this country.  Like how the enemies of the State suddenly came onto the scene from within in various countries of Europe in early 1900s, like in Germany, and in Italy, there are enemies of India everywhere from within India.  These enemies of India come in the form and shape of protesting Dalit students in university campus, they come in the form of ordinary farm worker who ate beef, and they come in the form of journalists and editors. 

Sedition cases, those used by the British Empire to incarcerate the freedom fighters of India, are springing up everywhere like it’s the Spring Revolution of Tunisia.  This country is geared for witch-hunting.  All of a sudden each of us is asked to prove our patriotism.  To do that, we have to chant a devout slogan for a Goddess.  Otherwise we are traitors who will sent to Pakistan. 

And how do these traitors look? They look just like you, the ordinary people, they are your nice neighbors.  Oh! Don’t be fooled! They are all traitors, they are all anti-nationals, as the Hindutva leaders tell you.  They come in the form of liberals, the seculars, the communists, the socialists, the SCs, the STs, the OBCs, the Muslims, and the Christians. They come in the form of students, the teachers, the professors, the journalists, the editors, the book writers, and the movie makers.   They are everywhere.  They are the enemies within.  And amidst all these anti-nationals, there is only one patriot.  He wears a Khakhi uniform or wears a tilak. And he owes his allegiance to Hindutva ideology.

And there is only one prescribed and sanctioned expression of love for your country.  You have to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.  Anything less, you are traitor.  ‘Jai Hind’ won’t do.  ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ won’t do.

Bharat Mata Ki Jai – Does it have religious connotation?

On the controversy surrounding Asaduddin Owaisi’s refusal to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, Bharka Dutt of NDTV asks Owaisi, ‘Why would you say NO to a slogan which does not have a religious connotation - that simply describes the country to be a motherland?’

When I Google Searched ‘Bharath Mata’ in Images, this is what I get.  These are the first few results.

Why I won’t say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’?

Another controversy is now brewing across the country.  Asaduddin Owaisi, MP from Hyderabad, said that he won’t say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. He insisted that he won’t chant this slogan even if someone puts a sword on his neck.  

Owaisi says he is a patriot, but not a nationalist (the way RSS defines).  Mr. Rakesh Sinha, the other commentator, says that a person who doesn’t say, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ cannot love his country.  Whereas Owaisi asks, do you have a problem if we say, ‘Hindustan Zindabad'? [He later said, 'Jai Hind' on TV]

This raises fundamental questions about how we view our country.  What is India to each of us?

Video: Anupam Kher Vs Asok Ganguly - The Essential Truth

Anupam Kher Vs Asok Ganguly - The Essential Truth

Should we not protest against Supreme Court Decisions?

During the course of JNU row many have contended in TV debates and online discussions that ordinary people in India do not have a right to protest a Supreme Court Decision.   One anchor even asked a JNU student leader, ‘Do you think you know more than the Supreme Court judges that you could protest their decision?’

Most Indians tend to think that a protest against Supreme Court decision should not be allowed.  However, in most mature democracies, including India, people have protested against Supreme Court decisions.   There are many examples.  But here I describe a notable one.

When Abraham Lincoln was the President, the US Government passed 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to US Constitution to emancipate Black people in that country, giving them equal rights.  For about twenty years they enjoyed this freedom as equal citizens.  However, a Supreme Court Decision (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896) reversed most of these amendments thereby creating Jim Crow laws that implemented ‘separate but equal’ doctrine.  Blacks were segregated, lynched, and denied voting rights.  Basically, the Black man was not treated as equal citizen.

It took major protests of 1950s and 1960s to reverse the Supreme Court decision of 1896.  People came out in thousands to protest these laws.  Martin Luther King is one of the leaders of this Civil Rights Movement.

Is this ‘freedom of speech’?

Smrita Irani, Minister for HRD, in her speech in Lok Sabha, while referring to a pamphlet on Mahishasur Martyrdom Day that described Goddess Durga as ‘sex worker’, asks, ‘Is this freedom of speech?’

She then asks, ‘What is this depraved mentality?’

She believes that a group which celebrates Mahishasur, and describes Goddess Durga as ‘sex worker’ is mentally depraved and she believes such a group should NOT be allowed to express their opinion.  She questions everyone else who is supporting JNU students:  ‘Freedom of speech, ladies and gentleman. Who wants to have this discussion…? I want to know.’

This is where Hindutva gets it wrong.  Not only do they do not understand the concept of India, they fail quite miserably when they try to define Hinduism for all of us.  Each time they try to bring a new section of Hindus into their fold enforcing conformance in their definition of Hinduism, they alienate some other section of Hindus.

Smriti Irani is bang on in reflecting the true prejudices of Hindutva proponents when she accuses the group identities that have distributed the pamphlets, in her own words, “SC, ST and minority” students of JNU.   Isn’t this the same allegation levelled against Hindutva groups? That they are against the interests of SC, ST and minorities in this country?

Today I woke up in the land of Taliban

You know there is something grossly wrong with a nation when it books a man on ‘sedition’ for demanding ‘freedom from casteism’, and books another man for ‘defacement of property’ for offering ‘reward to kill a real person’.

Today I woke up in the land of Taliban – the fear that I expressed many times over the last many years.  ‘Look, I said so!’ just doesn’t cut it anymore.

The fears that I expressed about this nation are slowly turning out to be true. 

Talibanization of this country is now picking up pace.   Nationalism is hijacked by one group, one ideology, who now portray every other group, and every other ideology as ‘anti-national’.

Long ago, I wrote (in 2007):

First they came for…

First they came for the Sikhs, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Sikh.

Then they came for the Muslims, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Muslim.

Then they came for the Christians, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Christian.

Then they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Liberal Hindus, and I didn’t speak up,

because I was a conservative Hindu.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left

to speak up for me.

Why I am a traitor?

I eat beef

Therefore, I should be sent to Pakistan, but not any other beef-eating country such as England, USA, or Japan.

I criticized death sentence to Afzal Guru

Therefore, I am a supporter of terrorism.

I supported freedom of speech to the JNU students.

I could be charged with sedition.

I believe that India is not just for Hindus but home to many others.

I could be labelled as anti-nationalist.

I don’t think my country is always right just because I happen to be born in it.

I could be labelled as unpatriotic.

JNU Student Leader arrested on Sedition

Right now, as I write this, India is under a great threat.  India’s unity as a nation is under attack.  An enemy has made his intentions clear - he wants to break up India into tiny pieces.  He has the wherewithal to take away our freedoms, strip us of our institutions, and then break up this nation.  And we are all reeling under the fear.  What we believed in all these years - that this country shall always stay united - is all of a sudden put at risk. 

The enemy comes in the form of ordinary students of JNU campus in New Delhi.  What they said in their college grounds, their threats to break this nation into tiny little pieces, has made this entire country paranoid, and India has taken the necessary precaution to stop them in their tracks.  It has used the same law that the British used to incarcerate Gandhi and other national leaders during Independence Movement.  On the charges of sedition, the student union leader of JNU is arrested.

Social media is buzz with support for the threatened nation.  They believe that this nation has done the right thing putting this evil incarnate in the jail for his threats.

What is my opinion on this issue?