Kabir Srivastava
IT’S NOVEMBER 8 TOMORROW.
For the rest of the world, it would an unremarkable Monday. But for hundreds of millions of Indians, tomorrow marks five years since the infamous demonetisation of all high value currency — a Modi-made-disaster that has sent the Indian economy in tailspin, pushed tens of millions into poverty and overall badgered the Great Indian Dream.
All this while, the stated objectives of demonetisation: to make India a cashless economy and to suck out financing for criminal activity have not only not been achieved, but have only become worse. There is more cash in circulation and more crime financed by it than there was in 2016.
Truth be told, the stated objective of the demonetisation was a complete lie. The acolytes who advised him of it were guided by two factors alone: (1) to disrupt political financing for opposition parties in UP elections and (2) to destroy small and medium enterprises so their businesses can be had by the bigger, more organised capitalists.
In these two objectives, demonetisation was a raging success. If the PM would have stopped the assault on India’s MSMEs at that, demonetisation would have been forgivable. But he went on. The treasury was opened up as a personal vanity box to the oligarchs in form of easy loans and tax rebates, whereas the small and medium enterprises purged. Then came GST and then came lockdown.
The final result is for everyone to see. World Bank has again cut India’s GDP growth forecast for 2021-22, from 10.1% to 8.3%. Since growth was -7.3% in 2020-21, this means over two years India’s “growth” will be 0.49%. It’s a shame given that the fundamentals of the Indian economy (built during the non-BJP years) remain strong and the spirit of the poor Indian people who have no choice but to get up every morning and present themselves to work, remains indomitable.
Many wealthy Indian cite the raging stock market and indirect tax collection as a sign of economic vitality. That argument is only clever by half for it conveniently obscures what happened in the last five years and who should be held accountable. Secondly, the stock market is raging because the middle class is paying the tax share of corporate India. Modi donors have it easy. Accommodative monetary policy from central bankers to tide over the Covid storm helps, but wait for the taper tantrum.
No amount of glossing and publicity stunts would hide the fact that Modi’s economic policies are intended to purge India’s working classes and make them politically irrelevant. Once the bourgeoisie is stripped off its feather, all resistance would fall. India would have just two classes: the wealthy and the poor. And then the world will see the real Modi.