I just had this chat/argument/advice session with the owner of the shop from where I buy dry fruits. I always pay him in cash. I called him to tell him that when the goods are delivered home I will be paying in cheque. He said no Madam, we never accept cheques. I said come on, there is shortage of cash you know, you need to change your systems and then I took the name of our Prime Minister on how he is working hard to clean up our economy. He was furious. He said let Modiji do whatever he wants, why should we suffer. I questioned him suffer? Can you not bear some pain for long term gain? And then I asked him what is the big pain for you to take a cheque. He said Madam Modi thinks he can change and eliminate black money but people must change. I got angry. I told him you mean to say we should not do anything because people will not change. I said a drop in the ocean makes all that difference. He tells me but those people will take all the water from the ocean and make it dry!! I told him don’t be so pessimistic. Who is PM Modi doing all this for, for us, for your children I told him. But he refused to be taken by all this upright talk. He said Madam why should we suffer. My goods are lying unsold. We are not getting credit from our suppliers. And then he said I have 3 cheques with me from customers that have bounced. If you are ready to honour them, I will continue to take cheques. I asked him are these your frequent customers. He said yes and they are from all these towers (meaning rich people). He told me you may be honest but how can I take a cheque when my experience has been bad. Well he did shut my mouth up. I realised he had a point, PEOPLE NEED TO CHANGE AND THAT’S WHERE ALL THE ROADBLOCKS COME FROM. We all need to have cooperated to make this work. But we did not. We only raised or pointed our fingers at all that was wrong.
When a journalist told me a few years back that fake or counterfeit money is coming in trucks from the borders, I was shocked as I had heard it for the first time, but many tell me it is happening for years. This can have so many repercussions. Read this article which says that troubles in J&K have stopped suddenly because of demonetisation http://postcard.news/violence-jammu-kashmir-suddenly-stopped/. But when fake money was filtering in, was it headline news in any paper or did I miss it? Did these very same critics point out why the government is not doing anything about it? Was there much noise made? Now the critics are fast at giving reasons why demonetisation is not the solution.
Nevertheless it is one big step in the right direction. Involuntary disclosure is not voluntary and so it is going to create hardships. I thus cannot accept criticisms against demonetisation. I know that it is easy for me to say this with a credit and debit card in my hand and I am no trader or farmer. But we need to take these hard steps. The government has only to lose with this announcement. It may just lose votes. So here is one step not done for the vote bank but again we are up and ready to criticize. What is the intention? The intention is good. The intention is honest. To clean our system of black money. Is this the best route critics ask? Why make people suffer critics ask? There are many other ways critics say. But the fact is that for years we really did not do anything.
Yes its true that a big fault lies with the government on the preparedness of the scheme. They should have thought it through, especially making ATMs ready to withdraw new cash (but that would have taken some time and between that the danger was of the news being leaked). I may digress here but I suggest to the government that be it demonetisation or be it Swachh Bharat or even Health information like prevention of the spread of Tuberculosis, government needs to build an added machinery where it has government appointed people going to the poor, rather than the poor seeking the government in long queues. We did have some such system in the past. Where government people visit the slums, the rural areas and educate the poor. Here in the case of demonetisation too, the government could have set up a bank extension scheme (or for that matter even employed bank correspondents) at various slums, rural locations and set up distribution systems.
The people do understand what is good and bad for them. Maids, drivers in my locality never complained. They did say what a big problem it is but they managed. That’s the spirit they have. They are eager to be a part of the clean system and be a part of developing India. Look how they adapted to mobile phones. How they have gone on to open bank accounts. How they yearn that their children have ENGLISH education despite the big donations schools ask even them! (well hopefully demonetisation does address that issue). They would be even better off if the government goes to them. The Prime Minister’s Mann ki baat initiative is a good communication system but the mass may not have the infrastructure or the time to listen to it.
Well white is the colour in fashion. USA voted for white people (not a good thing), we vote for white money (a very good thing).
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