By Nishat Ara for TwoCircles.net
In this season of demonetisation, it is common to see the Aam Aadmi asking for change of the new Rs 2,000 notes; that is if they are lucky to get one after standing in queues for hours.
Many small and mid-scale traders are meanwhile worried about the losses they incur on unaccounted cash they may have. ‘Aapka Kitna gaya’? (How much did you lose?) is the common refrain among them.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on November 8 in his address to the nation the decision to withdraw old 500 and 1000 rupees notes, my mother called my father wondering what to do what few bundles of 500 notes they had saved from uncertain fruit trade for emergency situations. With fewer 100 rupees notes at home, as a housewife she was also concerned about managing daily needs of the family.
My own experience with the recent move made by the government is not very different from the rest of the countrymen who stood for hours in serpentine queues to deposit and exchange their own savings. I had been privileged enough to avoid queues so far in my life as often as my father or brother would often stand on my behalf to pay my college fees or to pay any other bills. The only memory of standing in the queue I have is in school, during the assembly for prayers.
But this time there was no escaping as you would need some cash for daily chores, especially since I have to travel everyday to go to the university. Since my father had to take care of his own trade and deposit and exchange currency, he asked me to go to bank as well and despot money for my expenses in saving account as well as withdraw some for my expenses.
As I reached the bank and stood for few hours in one long unending queue to deposit money, I realised I need to stand in another such queue once again to withdraw my money. As I stood in line, I kept wondering about lakhs of poorer, uneducated people who anyway found banking complicated but now are forced to deal with it. On another day, the next week, as I stood in front of one ATM near my house in central Kolkata’s Elliot Road with my friend Humaira, I counted the number of people in front of me to mentally guess the time it may take for my turn and prayed that the money is not exhausted.
There is no other way of escaping demonetisation. This is not a war time but there appears to be financial emergency in our country. We are no more free citizens of an independent country, but those who are forced to follow the dictates of the government, without any question asked because we are told it is in the larger interest of the nation.
More than the decision of demonetisation, its poor implementation and currency crunch is taking a toll on the purchasing power of common people, affecting the whole chain of production. In fact more than 60 people, most of them poor, have already lost their lives.
What was touted as a major policy decision to catch hoarders of black money is affecting more poorer people than the rich, who are finding different means or Jugaad to bend rules in their favour. Economists have also pointed that often what is termed as black money is not hard cash, but those converted into real estate, gold and investments in share markets as well as those parked offshore in safe tax havens.
The service class will have no real impact of the demonetisation in the long run, however, the major brunt will be on small traders and local retailers while e wallet companies like PayTM and chain retailers like Big Bazar are seeing a huge surge in their business. My mother who goes to buy groceries and vegetables for homes regularly says that most vegetable vendors and Kirana shopkeepers are in gloomy mood.
Bulk of India’s labour force is still in unorganised sectors and they get their payments in cash. In fact industry experts have already predicted loss of jobs in labour intensive industries due to demonetisation.
Of course the world is going towards digitisation and gradually moving towards cashless economy as bulk of transactions take place through internet banking or plastic money. But PM Modi’s fixation with digitisation need to be in sync with ground realities as well. Although literacy rate has gone up to 74%, but the general level of awareness is still quite low among bulk of rural populace, combined with urban poor. Even after opening of lakhs of bank accounts for poor under Jan Dhan Yojna scheme, only 53% of the citizens have bank accounts and a good number of them cannot use internet banking. There are apprehensions of online frauds when using credit cards or online banking.
Of course one needs to plan to have long term targets of bringing the whole economy under scrutiny and also set goals towards digital banking and transactions, but that must not be imposed on citizens in haphazard manner. It would happen eventually once the level of education and awareness increase and people are more friendly in using mobile Apps and internet.
Disruption in economy may take months to normalise and common Indians will somehow bear this too and move; and only time will tell whether this was only political manoeuvring or it could meet the said objectives of curbing the shadow economy. But in a country where 60% of the population still do not have access to toilets and hence defecate in open, where over 10 lakh children below the age of five die every year due to poor quality of sanitation, nutrition and health system of diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea, making digital banking and cashless economy a priority appear laughable.
Demonetisation has taken even those with all accounted hard-earned money on a roller coaster ride as the so called ‘short term pain for long term gains’ have been too abrupt. The government was caught totally unprepared for the scale of the policy change that has touched almost every Indian, from shortage of new bills to recalibration of ATMs. One only hopes that the government soon finds some mechanism to control the fiasco before it turns into a disaster.
(The author is currently pursuing her MA in Journalism and Mass Communication at Aliah University, Kolkata)