‘Surgical Strike’ on Tirtharaji Devi!

By Sandeep Sahu

A disclaimer at the outset: this columnist is an illiterate in economics and financial matters. But since writing on something else would be nothing short of blasphemy on a day when the whole nation has been thrown into a tizzy following the announcement on the demonetization of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1, 000 denomination late last evening, I would try to offer my humble take on the issue for whatever little it is worth.

As I saw the long queues in front of ATM counters and petrol pumps in the city, heard people (many of them not any more knowledgeable than me on such matters) talking animatedly about its pros and cons and scanned jokes and insights shared on social media at a frenetic pace barely minutes after the announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last evening, my mind inevitably went back to an incident that happened some two years ago.

I had gone to a small town to attend the marriage ceremony of a relative. On the morning of the reception day came the startling disclosure that the father of the groom had exhausted everything that he had on buying stuff required for the marriage and was left with no money to buy the grocery, vegetables and – most importantly – mutton that the guests would be served that evening. Since there was no point wasting time trying to find out how the groom’s father had bungled so badly, I rushed to the nearby ATM counter and withdrew an amount of Rs 40, 000 using the debit cards of three banks where I have accounts, one of which afforded the luxury of withdrawing Rs 20, 000 in one go. The crisis was solved, the reception went off without a hitch and the guests went back belching that night.

Just imagine a similar situation now. What does one do? To withdraw an amount of Rs 40, 000, one would require no less than 20 ATM cards if it is before November 24! If someone has just one debit card, he would need to withdraw cash everyday for 20 days at a stretch to get Rs 40, 000!!

From Kushinagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh comes the shocking piece of news (reported by leading Hindi daily Amar Ujala) that Tirtharaji Devi, an old washerwoman, who had rushed to the nearest bank this morning with two Rs 1, 000 notes after hearing about the NDA government’s ‘surgical strike’ on black money last night, died of shock after finding the bank closed and being told by someone that her currency notes were now worth no more than raddi.

My good friend Alok Putul informed me about an incident in Raipur today where relatives of a youth, who had committed suicide last night, could not get him cremated for several hours because the timber merchant would not accept Rs 500 notes offered by the family members to buy the wood required for cremation.

I have absolutely no doubt that such heart-rending stories would abound in newspaper reports and television channels from tomorrow onwards – and not just from faraway eastern Pradesh, but from the interiors of our state as well. It is no secret that a lion’s share of monetary transactions in rural India takes place in hard cash – not because people have heaps of ‘black money’ stacked in their homes, but because the overwhelming majority of them are still out of the reach of the banking system. Just think about the small farmer in a village in Kalahandi or Keonjhar, who has just sold his paddy crop and kept the cash at home since there are no banks in the vicinity.

It is all very well to talk about cashless transactions, ‘plastic money’ and internet banking. But how do they bail out the poor farmer or small trader in a village without a bank account, who suddenly finds that the money he possesses is not the worth the paper it is printed on? Did Messrs Modi and Jaitley think about them while launching the supposed ‘surgical strike’ on black money and counterfeit currency? There is no evidence to show that they did. To brush aside the real tough times the ordinary citizen is facing in the wake of the decision as a ‘temporary inconvenience’ that has to be endured in ‘the greater interest of the nation’ displays gross insensitivity on the part of the Union government. Already there are reports of Rs 1, 000 notes being exchanged for Rs 800 – even Rs 600 at some places – by touts. So what is the differential earned by the tout if not black money?

Even assuming that the move would unearth black money and push counterfeit notes out of circulation, why couldn’t the government give the common man time to dispose of his rightfully earned income? Is it not ironic that the same government, which gave several months of advance notice to those with black money to declare their hidden assets, was not willing to give more than 3-4 hours to the layman, who suddenly finds himself carrying the can with legitimately earned ‘white money’?

Did the government reckon with the possibility that what was intended as a ‘surgical strike’ against black money could turn out to be a ‘surgical strike’ against the likes of Tirtharaji Devi instead?