Modi goes for broke after illegitimate wealth

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Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s demonetization of high value currency notes has exposed the rather large and bloated underbelly of our society. The shenanigans of this section of Indians in the background of the demonetization put us to shame in front of the world which has been watching the developments in the country with interest. Every country, as indeed every Indian, is aware of how our economy has had to contend with a parallel economy of formidable proportions. But its ramifications as they unfolded made most of us wonder whether most of us were crooks and had no patriotic feelings.

As Modi’s surprise announcement about demonetisation was made late in the evening around 8.30 PM on the 8^th November last one thought people would take it easy and look for ways out to get most of their unaccounted cash, if any, disposed of some way or the other next day but mostly in a regular manner. One thought the demonetization would not yield much as an opportunity had already been given to all the cash hoarders to declare their holdings on payment of minimal tax, penalty and surcharge amounting to a total of 45% under the Income Disclosure Scheme 2016 (IDS) that was run for as many as three months from 1^st June to 30^th September 2016. The Scheme yielded more than Rs. 65000 crore (Rs. 650 billion, around $95 billon), by itself an astronomical sum. But for the size of the unaccounted wealth estimated to be a mindboggling sum of around 9 lakh crore (Rs. 90000 billion, approximately $1500 billion) this was considered chicken feed. And as the prime minister had warned earlier that further action would follow if the outcome of the IDS was not satisfactory action to further squeeze out unaccounted cash was expected.

As the high value currency notes of Rs. 500/- and Rs. 1000/- were to cease to be legal tender by the midnight of 8^th November the hoarders tried most of the tricks that they could possibly use. They made a beeline that very night for the jewellers and unloaded the cash there and were prepared to get in return whatever was offered. The shopping hours, at least for jewellers, got extended and the business during those hours was reported to be of Rs. 100 crores in Bhopal alone. Many of the jewellers are going to have to answer for their indiscretions in course of time. Apart from buying jewellery the hoarders tried to buy railway tickets to be cancelled later. Enormous number of railways tickets for all air-conditioned classes were bought with the intention of cancelling them eventually. The government had to block that route of changing the colour of the ill-gotten money. That Indian attribute of “jugaad” was in full play.

From the 9^th November onwards the black money barons put all their human resources for exchanging their black cash at the bank counters. That the exchanged amount would only be of a paltry Rs. 4000/- (later raised to 4500/- and eventually reduced to Rs. 2000/-) did not really matter. Initially only the same representative was asked to join the queue in a bank over and over again with different IDs. When the authorities intervened to check this ploy multiple representatives were mobilized to exchange the cash at different locations. For all their labours the representatives got a petty commission but they were clogging the banks to the detriment of genuine exchangers whose wait at the banks was avoidably lengthened.

The authorities were apparently watching the proceedings with a keen eye. When it was realized that the same set of men were exchanging cash at different times in the same bank or at different banks they introduced the marking of the fingers of the representatives with indelible ink that is generally used during elections. As even then some misuse of the facility was noticed the authorities reduced the amount dispensed for exchange to only Rs. 2000/-. Ingenious as all crooks are, even this they tried to circumvent. Then the practice of exchanging only in the branch where the depositor had his account was introduced to further bar the hoarders from attempts to launder their money.

 It has been a very difficult and strenuous time for people all over the country. As somebody remarked, the entire country was seemingly waiting in long, serpentine queues to exchange their defunct cash in order to run their households, businesses or whatever. Here too the hoarders who are nothing but anti-socials increased the pain of the general public by sending their hired hands. Some deaths occurred of people while waiting in queues.

Likewise, it has been a tough time for the bankers. A few deaths took place in banks too due to over-strain. Nonetheless, they did a tremendous job. Not only did they have to contend with long line of money exchangers, they had to deal with enormous amounts of cash which in many cases were mixed with fake Indian currency. The fake ones, especially those printed in Pakistan, are difficult to detect. Pakistan had made special efforts to set up a press that was capable of introducing almost the same security features as are used in this country. The Bank staff had, therefore, to be careful, keeping a sharp eye while receiving cash that was tendered over the counter. It was kind of a game of matching of wits virtually at every step and checkmating the fraudsters and frustrating their pernicious efforts to 

cheat the government.

Not only did they try to recover whatever was possible from their piles of cash that had become trash, they even tried to save themselves from the arms of the law. They not only burned them, they also dumped in rivers and drains huge numbers of currency notes of high denominations that they were left holding in their offices, business sites or residences. A whole truck-load of currency was reported to have been set fire to. The rot has seeped in so deep that a large number of seizures were made in small towns from Gujarat to Bihar and from Punjab to Tamil Nadu. Many seizures were effected while the cash was being transported by these crooks to places that they thought were convenient for their illicit purposes. On the plus side, the local bodies and the utilities have had a windfall. All outstanding payments have been paid off, including some in advance, to fatten their always-starving finances. Likewise temples too have had so much cash showered on them that some of them have had to hire extra hands to count the piles of cash.  

 No reports of our “netas” (political leaders), the repositories of substantial amounts of black money, have, however, surfaced so far except one from Bhopal where it was reported that they were browbeating cooperative banks to provide them with back-dated FDRs. Cooperative banks still operate manually and the records can be easily fudged

But the unscrupulous man in business or industry is, kind of, never-say-die person. He would never give up and come clean and surrender. Hence, only a small proportion of dirty cash is likely to be exposed and brought overground. A lot will remain underground as liquid cash. A far greater proportion has been invested in fixed assets like land, real estate, etc. But Prime Minister Modi is not going to relent; he is going for broke after the cheats and the unscrupulous. Already, raids have been conducted on jewellers – their shops and residences – and he has announced a drive against “benami” property, i.e. property held against the name of a fictitious person where most of the black money has been invested.

If not anything else, the proceedings in this regard show how rich the country is, only the riches have been cornered by a few crooks. It has always been rich but ordinary people could never enjoy its wealth. The Mughal raiders, the Europeans, the British and now the crooked politician, bureaucrats and businessmen have looted it. It is only Modi who has taken this step knowing full-well it might electorally backfire on him.

*Photo from internet

21^st November 2016

Modi's "Clean India" campaign

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Prime Minister Modi launching "Clean India" campaign

Around thirty years ago while on a visit to the Peoples’ Republic of China I used to watch Chinese films on the small black & white TV set having nothing to do in the evenings. True, I did not understand a word of what was said and yet, for understanding emotions one does not need to know the language. The films used to be mostly about peasants and workers with young boys and girls working together. In one film I found a little romance between a boy and a girl. It seemed to have blossomed, quite unglamorously, while they swept the streets together in the early mornings. Later, they would furtively meet again between classes at their college. Obviously, they were not municipal sweepers; they were students and had to do such civic duties. This I came to know from one of the Chinese escorts we had. Devoid of any caste hierarchies like ours, no stigma is ever attached in China to such duties that are beneath dignity for most of us.

During the same trip abroad we were in Japan for a fortnight. One late evening in Shinjuku area of Tokyo I came out of the famous camera shop of Yudobashi and settled down on a thoughtfully-provided bench to have a quiet smoke. I had hardly smoked half of my fag when a man in light blue half shirt and deep blue trousers with dark blue peak cap came out broom in hand. From his appearance he looked almost like an airline pilot. He swept the surroundings of the shop, which in our case would be public space,

"Clean India" logo

collected whatever little litter he found in a bin took it away inside the shop. I was later told that everyone cleans up the areas around their respective shops before closure. That explained the absence of any litter on the streets in the mornings. Even Prime Minister Modi observed during his recent trip to Japan that children thoroughly clean every part of their school.

Cut to Bhopal a few years ago. One morning I happened to be at the local New Market rather early for the locals, i.e. around 11 AM. The shop that I went to was being swept by a casual employee. Quite contrary to what I had seen in Shinjuku, after having swept all the rubbish and collecting it all together, the sweeper used the broom to push all that outdoors on to the street right outside the shop. The dust and plastic flew around in the rather strong September breeze. Surprised, I asked the shop-keeper whether he didn’t have a bin for the trash his shop generated to be emptied at a municipality-designated place, he gave me a curious look as if I was an extra-terrestrial.

In 1966 while working at Jabalpur in central India I happened to be going by road to Keymore via Katni. Just outside Katni I saw about two dozen small brick and mortar cubicles in apparent disuse. On inquiry I was told these were numerous toilets built for the villagers but had remained unused. One wonders what went wrong – either these were planned badly or were not maintained properly or the users found it inconvenient. Again, while escorting a senior colleague to a village close to Nagpur, again in central India, in 1979 both of us had to put our hankies to our respective noses as we picked our way through the lumps of human excreta strewn all over. The village was seemingly blocked off by these lumps and the stench. Here was a village that needed toilets but there was none and, surely, this one was not the only one where there were no toilets.

Our proclivity to mess up our surroundings apparently has a cultural connection. We, the Hindus, have that regimen of regularly

A view of garbage and a child defecating

pouring water over ourselves to supposedly cleanse our bodies but would never bother about cleaning our surroundings. We will bathe in the Ganges to purify ourselves but leave it contaminated. The public places are, well, of the public; hence why should one bother about them? Besides, it is infra dig for a caste Hindu to clean-up the public places, not to speak of his own personal spaces. There are lower castes whose job has traditionally been to clean-up the public places and toilets, if any, at home. The Hindu caste hierarchy comes into play in these matters and this is prevalent in many parts of the country even today. No wonder India is largely unclean. From dirt, garbage, trash, dung of various stray animals one would find all of them on the Indian streets. Littering, spitting, urinating and sometime even defecating openly are commonly occurrences. Once I happened to see a man defecating on the sands of Chowpatty in central Mumbai in broad daylight and ditto on another occasion on the tracks between two platform of Bhopal Jn.

Defecation out in the open is partly cultural and not entirely out of necessity. I recall my professor at the college once chided me for being a late-riser. He said he would get up a 5.00 in the morning, walk out of the house for his constitutional with a lota-ful (a vessel-ful) of water. He had a house with a toilet and had no earthly reason to go out and defecate in the open. Yet, in this matter the culture in which he was brought up, presumably, in his village in the Hindi Belt comprising Uttar Pradesh, took over.

With all the good intentions, one suspects, therefore, whether Modi would be able to clean up India within the next five years – by 2019, Gandhi’s 150^th birth anniversary. Our habits and beliefs – social or religious – are so deep-rooted that it would need a herculean effort to change the profoundly ingrained attitudes. It will take generations for the change to take place; one would need

A view of garbage next to Himachal University, Simla

to begin at the beginning, starting off with the toddlers, as it were. Actually other countries, too, did not become what they are today overnight. Education, a cultural upgrade and the state machinery, all effectively played their respective roles. We have been far too lax and far too profligate for far too long. We have allowed cities, towns and villages to deteriorate, decay and degrade over years and decades. There seems to have been practically no governance and no public-health administration. Given our attitudes – lack of pride in the country and a pronounced unconcern for civic cleanliness –five years, clearly, is too short a period to liquidate the dungheap that has been built up over ages.

On the flip side, however, it may not be utterly impossible to clean up the country. After all, millions from our very own stock are settled abroad and have adapted to the ways of their respective host countries, whether in the East or the West. While some things of the hosts' culture do naturally rub off on the immigrants, the Indians there have drastically changed their unclean ways, mostly because of strict enforcement of laws and stiff penalties for deviant behaviour. If the Rule of Law is similarly enforced with a strong arm on every one – those who muck up the country and those who slip up on their duties of cleaning-up – surely things are likely to change appreciably. For that to happen, however, the states and their civic bodies and panchayats (village councils) would need to be sensitised. What would need to be inculcated are pride in one’s country and commitment to one’s duties, sometimes perhaps fostered even with a force that is not quite gentle.

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Photos from the Internet