Amid demonetisation rumpus, those hapless people

In the early 1980s I was working in our embassy in a Western European country where English was not spoken. A senior State Bank of India officer who later became the group chairman used to meet me often as he was also posted there waiting for his bank licence to be granted. Describing his travails there he used to say that he felt “left out” like an illiterate, not able to speak the local language.

The November 8 demonetisation, however laudable its objective might have been, has “left out” millions of migratory labour, daily wage earners, aged pensioners and even educated people like me who are not used to “Apps” and “Technology”. No one thinks about them in the cacophony of government claims and counter claims. No one considers whether the technology deficient institutions in our 98% “cash economy” are prepared for this sudden transformation. Even in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” it takes two years for human cloning through the Bokanovsky process to achieve “Community, Identity and Stability”. We want to do it in 50 days.

On January 10 I was tossed around between two MTNL offices in Mumbai merely to top up the “data pack” for my “Smart” phone. But on Jan.11 the pack would not work when I reached Delhi. My friend, a retired Director General of Police, complained that his payment gateway gobbled up Rs.75, 000/- thrice when he wanted to pay only once as advance tax.  Now he has to bend his knees and pray to get his Rs.1.5 lakh back!

Newspapers are vying with each other in advertising that e-services have peaked in India after November 8. Television cameras zoom in on stray vegetable vendors or fish mongers who are “happy” with “e-wallets”. Niti Ayog officials and bank chiefs wave their smart phones on camera saying that this is the future bank for the poor. The PM has been spearheading this campaign by exhorting villagers to use “smart phones” and “technology” to put an end to terrorism, counterfeiting, corruption and black money.

Yet the common public is confused with reports that their hard earned money is not safe with the multitude of “apps” marketed by those who have descended on us like the proverbial carpetbaggers. No official agency contradicts anything when such reports appear:  “Third party apps leaking info: Banks”, “Why e-wallets are not compatible”. On January 12, a Mumbai-based newspaper reported the case of five persons who lost their money through hacking from USA. Their hopes of getting back the money are dashed amid several pending challan and cheque bouncing cases.

Would our government guarantee that such cases of e-payment frauds made through “Apps” be dealt with by fast track courts?  They are also disheartened with a recent judgment by Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (Thane in Maharashtra) on January 15 that there would be no refund if you “click” on the “Link” on an enticing proposal and thereby lose your details. Has the government prepared the common man for the digital revolution it seeks to introduce? As of now the common man suffers either way.

There are spinmeisters digitally trashing the genuine doubts of common people as opposition inspired propaganda. Additionally some unseen phantoms are seen utilising anonymous social media trails to back up government claims. Some of these are to prove claims that there actually is a fake currency menace. On December 24 I received a whatsapp video showing “Pakistan destroying fake Indian currency printed by them”. It said that Pakistan which had printed 15 trillion notes to send into India had to destroy all these notes because of demonetisation.

However a closer examination of the video revealed that there was nothing to connect it with Pakistan as some people who were seen shredding papers from containers on a desert were dressed in Arab clothes. It was most probably part of a movie and morphed into propaganda to give credence to the counterfeit currency claims. Perhaps they believe like “Hypnopaedia” specialist Bernard Marx in Huxley’s “Brave New World” that “sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth”.

Talking about fake currency, the Reserve Bank of India itself does not think that it is a serious problem, if their past reports are any guide. On 23 March 2010 the then RBI governor said that fake notes detected in India were 8 per one million notes in circulation. He said that it was not serious compared to the international matrix: 7 fake per 1 million in Australia, 0.71 in New Zealand, 10 per million in Switzerland and 76 per million in Canada. A March 2013 RBI working paper also said that 5, 21,155 fake pieces were detected in 2011-12 out of a circulation of 69, 382 million notes (7.51 pieces per million). A leading daily has said on 5 December, 2016 that only 3.4% of all the notes returned by the public after demonetisation were found to be counterfeit.

The biggest lapse of our government in hastily introducing demonetisation is not considering what adverse effects it will have on vulnerable sections of the population. A European Union study “ Comparative study of Smart Cities in Europe & China- White Paper” (March 2014) on 15 Smart cities in China and an equal number in Europe had warned against too much of reliance on mobile applications (apps) that require access to smart devices. If  care is not taken, those normally not having such devices or who do not know how to use them like low income individuals, less educated groups, the elderly and others in need would be excluded. They had recommended an“off line provision” to serve such segments of the population for “Smart City” services.

I had pointed this out in my article in a leading monthly in September 2015 cautioning against the then “mantra” of “Smart cities” which now seems to have been forgotten in the present demonetisation steam rolling.

[The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat & author of ‘National Security & Intelligence Management-A new Paradigm’]