Demonetisation: A disaster in 2016, a resounding failure 10 years on
· Scroll
Ten years on to the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a sweeping withdrawal of 86% of all cash in the economy. The impact of this move was immediate and devastating as millions of people scrambled to deposit or exchange their cash within a narrow window of time.
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Adding to their misery, the government and the Reserve Bank of India kept changing the goal posts, imposing a limit on the exchange of notes, the amounts that could be deposited and steadily narrowing the time frame for exchanging the notes. As with the changing rules of the game, the announced objectives of demonetisation kept changing.
The tumult and chaos of those days are still fresh in our minds – small traders and hawkers without cash and working capital, unskilled workers thrown out of jobs, housewives losing cash they had hidden from abusive husbands, the lines and lines of people forced to stand in front of ATMs to withdraw measly amounts, and so much more.
The demonetisation of November 8, 2016 was a forerunner of the capriciousness, callousness and centralised nature of decision-making that has marked the Modi government’s 12-year-long tenure.
In a repeat move in March 2020, Prime Minister Modi announced a nationwide lockdown, which caused much greater human...