What Have We Gained, Mr Modi?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised that the demonetisation troubles would end in 50 days. As the deadline draws near, ATMs remain dry and people  are asking whether their pains were worth the gains.

- Vijaya Pushkarna

It is no coincidence that ‘notebandi’, the demonetisation of high-value notes by the Narendra Modi government, sounds a lot like ‘nasbandi’, the infamous sterilisation drive during the Emergency under Indira Gandhi. With long queues outside ATMs that seemed perpetually dry, the country has almost been cashless since Modi announced the demonetisation of 500- and 1,000-rupee notes on November 8. Curiously, that timed perfectly with his campaign for a cashless India or, as he twisted it, a less-cash India.

As cashless economy became the main focus, the talk of black money and counterfeit currency took a second place in the government’s scheme of things. The benefits to the economy and people of buying, borrowing, paying and selling without currency notes became the discourse from South Block, the Reserve Bank and the NITI Aayog. Indians, who had almost entirely been dependent on cash, were hurtled into a digital financial future, and most of them were caught unprepared.

Indians in cities have been using credit and debit cards, net banking, and even e-wallets to shop online, book train and flight tickets, make hotel reservations and pay the cabby, and even the maid and driver. It is those in Bharat, who are feeling let down, as in many cases their livelihood is threatened. “Modiji ne kaha ki amiron ko, paise walon ko line mein khada kar diya..lekin hum hi line mein khade hai,aur paisa hai hi nahi. (Modiji said he has made the rich stand in line, but it is we who are in the line, and there is no money.) One hears it very often in rural India.