The impact of Demonetization: United we never stood, divided we have been dragged into the gutter

There are no two ways about it and no easier way of saying this- The government’s drive to make illegal 86% of its cash in a bid to uproot corruption is an unmitigated management disaster of colossal levels. In fact, I fear tones of Op-eds will soon be written on the management lessons one needs to take out of this entire episode, that is as soon as the country and the economy emerge out of the gutter that this move has pushed it into.

A little too harsh for a man with such noble ideals? Well, the fact is ideals are good when followed with a plan in hand. In this case, there was none. What was there, however, was trash bags full of jingoism, short-sightedness, and the overt desire to repeatedly bring forth one’s own power in all its 56 inches of glory!

However, what has seemed to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this humongous, yet the tremendously flawed vision is how divided as a nation we are today. Even as most of ‘honest’ India stands in serpentine queues, the fact to marvel at is they’re ready to bear this, all for the sake of the nation! The reality however is, it’s only jingoism at work. And the truth about jingoism is that it works best on people who aren’t sufficiently educated or literate and 70% of India’s population, residing in tier 2 and 3 cities and its villages have been at the forefront of bearing the brunt of the lack of any decent educational facilities.

Well, what’s happening right now stinks of elitism and how deep-rooted inequality is all the way through to the highest corridors of the society. How else can one explain a salaried person having not one penny of cash in pocket, living life effortlessly cashless supporting Modi’s bravado and the cries of pain of a mother in rural India who can’t withdraw enough money every day to pay for her child’s treatment at a private hospital , which refuses to accept the old currency! The sate of public healthcare, we are all aware of, however!

So careless is this government of its helpless, the poor in rural India, ironically comprising 70% of its population that it has already remarked and categorized the death of over 47 people directly in concern with demonetization as ‘temporary hardships’ to ‘honest citizens’.

ALSO READ: Exclusive: Jio is starting home delivery for its SIM cards

What was the government thinking when it stifled 84% of the cash out of an economy that has 78% of all its transactions purely based on cash? The big sharks with black money weren’t storing that at home, it were the small traders, whose business models are entirely cash-based that had tones of cash stored at home. These would comprise people in the Agriculture sector, transport sector and all of the daily-wage labor market. 90% of all of India’s job market is cash based and to stifle it off most of its cash is to bring the functioning of one of the fastest growing world economies to a grinding halt.
​
If these conditions were to prevail, essentials like vegetables and milk will stop getting transported across cities, hitting inflation, work in sectors like agriculture and construction have already been severely impacted and there are fears of much worse happening