Calling demonetisation an attention-diverting tactic, senior journalist and Founding Editor of news portal The Wire, M.K. Venu said it’s a more political and less economic decision. It has political motive. The Narendra Modi government made tall promises with people but none of the promises has been kept even after the passage of two years and a half. Economy is in the doldrums and employment is rapidly reducing. So the government took the decision of demonetisation to divert people’s attention from these real issues.
Mr. Venu was speaking on ‘45 Days of Demonetisation – Its Social and Political Impact’ at a public meet at the headquarters of Jamaat-e-Islami Hindi in New Delhi on 23 December.
Elaborating the background of the decision, the learned speaker, who was also Managing Editor at The Financial Express, said that this idea of demonetisation was in the mind of PM Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had sent this idea to RSS chief and got the approval therefrom. Then he shared the idea with a World Bank economist to review it but the economist called it an impractical idea. It is not anywhere in the world to draw out 85 per cent cash from the market.
Explaining the present situation in the country after demonetisation, he said common people have suffered massively after this note ban. The market has shut down. Earlier the economy of the country was dwindling but now it is turning from bad to worse. For daily wagers it is a matter of survival. How would they survive in this condition? Media groups are not getting advertisement because of bad performance of the market and journalists are being sacked. The business of RSS itself has been also come to a halt. They fail to understand what to do. Voice has begun to be raised against the decision from the inside of RSS and BJP themselves. The government has played with the dignity of the people, who will take revenge of it in elections.
Talking on poor implementation of the note ban, the seasoned journalist further said that there was no preparation for the implementation of the demonetisation plan. They are confused about what to do. Reserve Bank of India has changed 55 notices within 40 days. The government itself is hopeless while people are outraged over the inconvenience. The government had estimated that black money will not return to banks; so the government will use it for government schemes. But most of the cash has deposited into banks. The rich managed to deposit their black money from different accounts. Now the government is thinking how it will be able to face the people’s ire.