The Demonetization Rant

8th November last year. Around 8 pm I was out at a cafe with a close friend, discussing how America is going to get royally screwed in the morning. Whatsapp forwards talking about note ban started coming in, which I ignored. Come on. Who trusts whatsapp forwards! I had around Rs 1200 in my wallet and put fuel worth 200 in my bike which left me with two 500 Rupee notes. A mistake I regretted for the next couple of weeks.

As I reached home and saw people reacting to this and the dear PM’s statement on TV, FB, Twitter etc, you could see mostly positive reaction from people as “it would eliminate all the black money”. The BJP supporters seem overjoyed at their leader’s “revolutionary” decision. The Congress supporters didn’t know how to react. I just enjoyed the memes and funny tweets and forwards(That “acha chalta hoon” meme was here to stay).

Next morning the world was laughing at America while Indians rushed to the banks. Queues were longer than the Bengaluru traffic jams. The word ‘line’ seemed to have gotten an air of negativity around it. People grew restless and bankers seemed clueless. Days passed and shit got serious. People were actually dying. The new 2000 notes were slow to arrive and the new 500 notes were nowhere to be seen. AC’s weren’t the only machine that did not work in ATMs. The cluelessness of bankers turned them arrogant and rude. And the common folks suffered.

Yet there was no apology from the government. At the least admit there was a flaw in execution! There was none. A few teary theatrics came out from the PM playing the victim card. The black money fight was now called “Road to cashless economy”. The blind bhakts went “If his 97 year old momma can go to the bank to exchange notes, why cant you?”. Dude! Who lets their 97 year old mother go to a bank! I rather not talk about the soldier and border reference.

I scrolled across my timeline looking at posts and comments, wondering how a person with a decent education could argue and defend this decision even after the generously asked “50 days”. One thing I noticed is that most young educated people who did it were one of the least affected by it. They were the employed class who stayed in the city, their salary transferred to their bank accounts every month and who swiped their way to most of the places they visit. But what about the guys who owned small businesses, did their transactions via cash. What about the grocery store and small restaurant owners. What about the cleaner, the driver, the labourer and the daily wage worker. And hundreds of other professions such as these.

The government or the party will never admit to their fault but you my friends need to think before justifying a horrific decision by unapologetic rulers.

Six months down the line, the economy suffered, rules brought in where the political parties got empowered. Banks started bringing out crazy laws. One such was the minimum balance rule. What would the poor guy do. What would a student staying away from his family do(I’ve lost over 300 rupees in the last two months!). Then the GST got rolled out, which I’m unqualified to talk about as I learnt about taxes just a couple of years back. And yet, I know that even it’s execution was flawed.

8th November affected me. And the people around me. Their businesses and their lifestyle. The leaders knew it wasn’t right for the nation. Yet they did it. Why else would one of the best economist in the world resign from his post a few days prior to this.

A year later the nation is still divided, distracted by petty issues like National Anthem, Taj Mahal, beef and loudspeakers, which mostly involves communalism. I wonder what happened to the Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic that I studied in School.