The Narendra Modi administration, principally backed by Arun Jaitley, sprang the ‘demonetisation shock’ rather childishly. Despite a seemingly noble intention, the midnight move was inappropriate. Their claim to have struck hard the terror outfits could be legitimate. But the fact that ill-fated masses got surgically stricken for no fault of theirs is true. Overnight, India went berserk; severely ill patients and the excessively hungry ones were forced to remain resigned to fate. The cheap way of admiring the move was best demonstrated in having the Modi’s wheelchair-borne 95-year-old mother Hiraben put in a bank queue to prove that even the supreme lady is treated as an ordinary citizen in the event of a jolt-causing Government move.
Modi is an established orator, more theatrical than any celebrity stage or screen thespian. So, he gets away with most of his populist moves though the economic strike is by and large a good one, only executed badly. The job appears to have been pulled without adequate homework, innumerable state publicity agencies including the Doordarshan and the AIR outfits having been left idle during the panic period. They could have been used to sensitise the masses to the realities and techniques of avoiding hunger or emergency healthcare situations when usable currency is not in hand.
The Supreme Court rightly declined to pass orders on public interest petitions praying for staying the demonetisation blow. It has, though, sought to know how the Government agencies are ensuring relief without trouble or delay.
It’s not so very difficult to use thousands of poor people to be employed on hefty labour charges to stand in queues at the banks to make billions of useless notes usable for the crooks. The poor who cast votes against baits of food and alcohol can labour for a couple of days to get the offenders their pieces of paper converted to cash with premium wages which would gift them big relaxing time as well.
Not surprisingly, one gets to see on television smartly-dressed yuppies full-throated welcoming ‘the historic move’ outside ATMs and petrol pumps with their swanky sedans or SUVs. Having been temporarily clueless or in a tizzy most urban maidservants, drivers, small shopkeepers, construction workers, electricians, plumbers and other independent service providers have vanished from workplaces to ensure children and the sick do get their food and medicine.
The routine allegations of selective leakage about the ‘surgical strike’ may have some steam though the popularly-known phenomenon is nearly impossible to prove. Robust mechanisms to watch and monitor movement of offenders and prevent suffering of the poor masses are not in place as yet.
Most importantly, the very conception of “black money” is absurd; the term is a misnomer since it conjures up the image of a stock of money which is supposed to be held not openly, in the form of bank deposits, but clandestinely in the form of currency notes, and that too in mattresses, pillowcases or in containers buried under the earth. It should be known that “black money” is a whole set of activities which are either illegal, such as smuggling, or drug-peddling, or procuring arms for terrorist organisations, or are undertaken in excess of what is legally permitted, or are not declared at all so that taxes are evaded. For instance, if 100 tonnes of minerals are extracted but only 80 tonnes are declared to avoid full tax amount, black money gets generated. Similarly, if only $80 is declared against an actual export of $100, the remainder $20 kept abroad in some tax haven is pure black money. likewise, if rupees are changed into foreign exchange through the hawala route and kept in deposits abroad, a black money issue comes up. Black money refers to a whole set of undeclared money generation and transaction activities. Rabid socialist Marx had said profits are earned not by hoarding money but by throwing it into circulation. The ‘miser’ sits over money turning it dead; the capitalist invests by putting money into circulation. According to Marx, those engaged in ‘black activities’ are capitalists. It must be known that foolish small-sum black money is lying idle; the big heap is quite in circulation or converted to real estate or bullion, especially after the alleged selective leakage. Black in stuff is little; black in circulation is huge. So, no good enough jolt would be felt by the smart offenders.
long before the days of computers, the British Internal Revenue Service had earned the reputation of being high class black money exposers simply through a process of meticulous investigation with a big size tax administering personnel.
The Modi move is not the first demonetisation of notes in India. In January 1946, the 1000 and 10000 rupee notes were demonetised; and in 1978, the Morarji Desai Government had demonetised 1000, 5000 and 10000 rupee notes from the midnight of January 16. But even in 1978, let alone in 1946, this had caused no hardships for the ordinary people since most of them had scarcely ever seen such a note, let alone possess one. In 1978, Rs1000 was a lot of money; and ordinary people hardly saw a 1000-rupee note. But that Morarji surgical move had miserably failed to end the scourge of black money. The Modi Government has the unquestioned flaw of impinging severely on common people.
It may be argued that abolishing a cash-using economy would counter black money accumulation. But ‘black activities’ financed through foreign banks will still escape detection in a cashless India. And the very idea of a cashless India represents a pipedream of a segment of the elite, which is totally unaware of the difficulty that a common person faces in obtaining a credit card or even opening a bank account (despite Modi’s loud boasts about expanding people’s bankability). The move towards a cashless economy, while not being realised, will simply become an additional means, through which the common people will get squeezed.
The claim that such sudden demonetisation acts against terrorism by preventing the circulation of fake currency notes printed across the border is also suspect. This argument hinges crucially on the assumption that the technology employed in printing the new legal tender will prevent any possibility of faking it. But technology is becoming smarter and cheaper. It’s also true that sharp brains pool to form organised crime syndicates more than ever before as money means much more than human relationships grown on sentiments. Offenders will catch up with help from unscrupulous insiders called ‘moles’. Hopefully, Modi and Jaitley will not commit an invasion on the poor masses ever again. Even the colonial government had not dared to do that in the darker opaque ages because they had a heart for the common citizen.
*The Odisha Government is contemplating a move to provoke the Supreme Court on the Mahanadi water dispute issue primarily because bilateral or trilateral talks did not become possible. Incidentally, by some stroke of bad luck, the Supreme Court lost the jurisdiction in river water disputes issues by a flawed Act passed by Parliament in 1956. No super brain has ever raised the issue of the related Article 262 (2) as one violating the Basic Structure Doctrine of the Constitution of India. It has been severally made clear that no Act can ever be passed offending the spirit of the Constitution of 1951. The Supreme Court has original, appellate and advisory jurisdictions. Its exclusive original jurisdiction extends to any dispute between the Government of India and one or more States or between the Government of India and any State or States on one side and one or more States on the other or between two or more States if and insofar as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or of fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends. In addition, Article 32 gives an extensive original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in regard to enforcement of the Fundamental Rights. It is empowered to issue directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari to enforce them. Under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, International Commercial Arbitration can also be initiated in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court also has a very wide appellate jurisdiction over all courts and tribunals in as much as it may, in its discretion, grant special leave to appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order in any cause or matter passed or made by any court or tribunal.
The Union Government did precious little to decide the Mahanadi issue under political compulsions; it did not even take steps to form a tribunal as per Article 262. Odisha has, therefore, no other option left than petition the apex court for relief. The Article 262 (2) can never be considered sacrosanct given the spirit of the Constitution. The Supreme Court can strike the flawed law even now.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)