Nobody will forget the historic
announcement Prime Minister Narendra Modi made to the nation on 8 November 2016
at 8:00 PM. During the subsequent hours thereafter, many including myself were
overjoyed after hearing the news. Modi critics were speechless. Rupees 500 and
Rupees 1000 notes were no longer legal tender. After the initial joy, the news
turned into worst nightmare for many, common people who were caught in the
crossfire in the battle against black money. After few days as chaos grew and
RBI started changing rules day by day, one thing was clear. Everyone was
divided into two groups, you either loved it or hated it, nobody could simply
ignore it.
Today, many people have already
made up their minds on the subject. Everyone therefore looks upon this issue
through these glasses. Everyone has their reason own valid reasons and
perspective for, and against the issue. Like every argument both side have
their valid points, some are logical some are not. But, I feel that the initiative
(certainly experimental) was good, but there was lack of planning. As the
Member of NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy in an interview on NDTV said “Something of
this large scale has never been attempted in the past, no matter how perfectly
you plan it there will be glitches. Unless you say I don’t care about secrecy.”
Many on the other side might question if the pain was worth the gain? I believe
it was. If you don’t, this is not an attempt to change your mind (because as I understand that is a futile attempt); you’re very
well entitled to your opinion. You may certainly have valid reasons as well, no
doubt about that.
In this demonitisation debate, I
feel many (along with me) belong in the category of “good plan but badly executed”. I say this,
because despite all the positive attached to the initiative, many people did
die in this process, the sole reason of that being lack of planning on part of
Government. Now this component of ‘lack of planning’ has two aspects to it, one
being lack of currency resulting in ineffective remonitisation, which is
difficult to achieve because of secrecy aspect. Second and the major problem in
my opinion is the unregulated manner in which over the counter direct
conversion was allowed by the government and number of old currency deposits.
RBI should have allowed direct exchange over the counter only where the
individual has a bank account, and deposits of old currency only one time per
account holder. When these regulations were introduced later on, queue all of a
sudden disappeared. Thereafter, remonitisation was efficiently achieved because
there wasn’t bloated demand. Again, it is easy for me to say this looking back,
but at the same time I expect better from Government from the beginning. It can’t
hide behind, “The Government, RBI, FM takes certain decision those decision are
based on certain consideration. Each of these lead to unforeseen contingencies,
things you did not anticipate that’s in the nature of things.” - Bibek
Debroy.
Apart from its initial goals of
reducing black money, counterfeit and terror funding, demonitisation made a
much needed push towards cash-less or less-cash economy. People have raised
questions over ‘need’ for cash less economy are something I don’t agree with
it, more the transparency the better it is. But, recently introduced
transaction charges are too harsh on the middle class. The only problem with
less cash economy is that, cash is an interest free liability on the
government. The more money in the bank, more interest government has to pay to
the account holder, this balance is important.
The other major problem with
Demonitisation is that, PM had said people could deposit till 31 December 2016
in Banks, and till 31 March in select RBI counters. The government has now done
a U-turn on the statement, as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said before SC that “There is no question of PM’s speech…if PM
says March 31, 2017 but the law says December 30, 2016, the law will prevail
over the PM. Let’s be clear about that first.”
Jury is still divided on the results
of Demonitisation with respect to effect on black money (so am I), but counterfeit and
terror funding has been severely affected for the good, that’s something the
majority can agree upon. As Justice, K.S.P. Radhakrishnan, in Pathan Mohammed
Suleman Rehmatkhan v. State of Gujarat, said “Criticisms are always welcome in
a parliamentary democracy, but a decision taken in good faith, with good
intentions, without any extraneous considerations, cannot be belittled, even if
that decision was ultimately proved to be wrong.[1]
Despite the many road bumps, to
certain extend in my opinion it did achieve its goal. As the line from EIC Modi song goes, ‘Ache din ka hai sapna, swach hoga bharat apna…” then we need to
chip in, go cashless as much as possible if we reduce our burden on cash
economy than people in rural areas will be benefited as they don’t have infrastructure
to adopt alternate option of cashless mode. This is the main objective behind this blog, not refresh the old debate for and against demonetisation or to bombard with one side of it and ignore the other side. It's fine as we exercise freedom of expression (Rights under Constitution), but we need to do our duties as well, agree or disagree with the step or how it was implemented, if you disagree, vote them out of power if you wish, you have a vote in it. But now is not the time, we need to teach and help those who have suffered the most, don't forget "...ask what you can do for your country." - JFK.
[1] (2014)
4 SCC 156, para 10