Dear Modi Ji, Why Haven’t We Seen the Who’s Who Waiting at ATMs?

“Why this ‘MasterCard-isation’ of our economy?” asks The Quint’s reader Indra Shekhar Singh.

(Photo: AP/Altered by The Quint)

Dear Modiji,

As a working professional, I want to ask you – who exchanged your notes? Did you get it done right before the portentous November 8 announcement? Why don’t we see a Twitter post/picture of you waiting for hours in an unnecessary bank queue?

Maybe you are too busy, and have five PAs to exchange your currency. But we have not seen any Cabinet minister, Mohan Bhagwatii or any of India’s esteemed industrialists – the Tatas, Ambanis or Adanis – stand in queues anywhere.

As I write this, I remember the bank operator telling me, only people with their own identity proof can get their money exchanged. So how did you all manage?

‘MasterCard Economy’

I am sure the Ambanis need more than Rs 4,000 a day to run their palatial apartments. Excuse my foolishness, but I often forget that we now reside in ‘Digital India’ where even their domestic helps, security guards, gardeners, and vegetable vendors may all have Jan Dhan accounts and their salary is transferred directly into their bank account.

And this is also the case with all vegetable vendors from Delhi to Chennai, for most of them carry card swipe machines, don't they?

I am against black money, but your policy in no way curbs it. In fact, all the money launderers are still laughing as they see the small fish being caught in your net.

Your Finance Minister has already told us the real intention of this undemocratic and furtive move. “Demonetisation decision was a logical step in a journey towards cashless society,” said Mr Jaitley.

“Cashless society”? Why use such euphemisms? Let’s simply call it a ‘MasterCard society’. Why are you allowing this ‘MasterCard-isation’ of our economy? With a single stroke, plastic money now has access to every household of India. Why was this necessary?

Plastic money is technological racism. Millions in our country have no access to banks. Forget banks, they are not even literate.

Some Pertinent Questions

(Photo: AP)

You can’t steer your economy into a situation where people have no access to food or medicine simply because the money in their pockets has no value.

Before you enforced this move upon us, why weren’t we given a choice to debate this. And why wasn’t the process of making donations to political parties made transparent or only through cheques?

We know why you picked 8 November. It is the day you lost Bihar, and maybe this is your way of revenge and punishment to the nation.

Did you know that farmers, especially the ones in northern India, are waiting to sell their produce but no one has the money to buy it? How will they purchase seeds or even pay back their loans?

‘Handful of Beneficiaries’

(Photo: AP)

You built your campaign around fighting black money. You further tried to get the maximum number of people in rural areas into the banking system. But when nothing worked, you took this call.

I see only a handful of people who are the real beneficiaries of this move – the banks and the BJP’s UP office.

This move is anti-poor, anti-farmer and tyrannical. It is strengthening corporate and MNC control on India. You will kill the vendor and replace them with FDI in retail; you will devalue the rupee and replace it with the plastic dollar.

But revenge or not, we know you have rigged the foundation of economic democracy in India. Your move is a slap on your swadeshi voters and subtly heralds the final takeover of India by the new economic world order. Trump wins America, Theresa May steals IPRs from India and Modi rigs India. What an 8th of November!

Regards,

Indra Shekhar Singh

(The author is the grandson of late Prime Minister VP Singh. He is a freelance writer.This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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