Carpet bombing that cripples the economy

When terrorists struck the Bombay Stock Exchange and other high-profile economic targets in 1993 and five years later went on a killing spree at Mumbai’s main railway terminal and into five star hotels, there was shock but also pride at how quickly the people stood up and the economy bounced back. The attacks were meant to hit at the economic capital of India, to halt business activity and to kill the spirit of enterprise and ingenuity that fuels our economy and thrives in millions of businesses big and small – from the jet set billionaire to the street vendor we see at every corner. The attacks failed because Indian businesses were back at work almost immediately. People won, the terrorists lost.

In contrast today, the entire nation stands crippled, the bulk of the economy is at a standstill and no one is clear when order might return. If the withdrawal of currency notes of Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 was supposed to be a step to fight terrorists, then this is a curious fight because all it has succeeded in is creating mayhem and breaking the back of the Indian economy in one stroke – something terrorists have always wanted but have never managed to achieve. In effect, this is a surgical strike against the people of India by the government of India. It has achieved what only the terrorists could dream of – near-complete panic and the end of ordinary, everyday life as we know it, at least for now.  

What is clear as daylight now is that the sucking out of 86 per cent of Indian currency and replacing it with new notes stands out as an unmitigated disaster, unparalleled in the hardships it has inflicted upon the nation, reducing the ordinary, savings-oriented people of India to beggars queuing up for their own money earned and saved the hard way.

The pictures of citizens across the length and breadth of this vast nation, a nation that would otherwise take pride in any action that would fight black money, standing for hours on end and returning with either no cash or meagre sums in their hand, is a sad portrait of ordinary honest people rendered helpless, even penniless even if in the short run, for no particular fault of theirs.

The pain and the anger of the people is made worse by the arrogant presentations of a finance minister who thinks he is a good communicator but in actuality is cut off from the mass of India, has never won a Lok Sabha election and has a way of moving in power circles and rising up the hierarchy through backroom machinations. The finance minister’s statement that it will take two to three weeks to re-calibrate ATMs and that people must wait and have patience, when what we see around us is people losing their dignity every day, is a perfect picture of officialdom represented by that classic ballad: andher nagri, charbat raja.

This is particularly unfortunate when seen in the light of the manner in which Vijay Mallya, now declared an absconder, escaped under the watch of this government after plundering the nation and now sits in the UK, untouched by the chaos caused by black money that he and people of his ilk use to live luxuriously. Just a day before the Prime Minister made the dramatic announcement, Theresa May was in India on her maiden visit as Prime Minister of United Kingdom.  

If nothing else, sheer political expediency demanded that the extradition of Mallya be turned into a focus of the interactions with the British Prime Minister. But there was nothing beyond pedantic reiterations and reassurances on this. The joint statement issued by the two governments stated: “The two prime ministers…directed that the officials dealing with extradition matters from both sides should meet at the earliest to develop better understanding of each countries’ legal processes and requirements, share best practices, and identify the causes of delays and expedite pending requests. They also agreed that regular interactions between the relevant India-UK authorities would be useful to resolve all outstanding cases expeditiously.”

Unless there was some deeper work beneath the surface, all that the statement indicated is that Mallya is unlikely to be brought to justice anytime soon. Signaling by the government is an important tool in large policy steps, like the fight against black money is. By making an example of a few big plunderers, many within the country and some outside, a thousand others get the message and the mood. That is in principle easier to do and far more effective than carpet bombing an entire nation when everyone can see that the ones suffering, even dying, are the poor and the weak, not the wealthy and the influential. But going after the big fish and preparing to bring them to justice requires genuine conviction, lots of background work (and yes, secrecy, too, so that they don’t flee) and most of all the will to root out black money rather than the George Bush-style “mission accomplished” kind of governance that looks to PR, photo ops and short term social media campaigns to make a point.

Incidentally, even those social media platforms that held out for the government have now falling silent or are gathering voices against the government and its actions. Amazing clips are flowing out on social media – on the one hand long serpentine queues and on the other people hitting out, sometimes in crude ways, at the Prime Minister and his government. The weapons that were used to silence many anti-government voices have now turned and not even the BJP understands how vicious or deep will be the wounds.

(The writer is Editor, SPJIMR. Views are personal)