“Sickening and Bizarre”: Forbes, WSJ Rip Apart PM Modi’s Note Ban

Forbes called the note ban the most “immoral” act by a government since Indira Gandhi’s forced sterilisation drive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move has rendered farmers, landless labourers and daily wage workers helpless and cashless. (Photo: AP)

In a stinging editorial on Friday, Forbes magazine editor-in-chief Steve Forbes dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move as “breathtaking in its immorality”.

Forbes unequivocally wrote off the move, calling it “the most extreme and destructive example of the anti-cash fad”.

(Photo: The Quint)

On 8 November, PM Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 – effectively rendering 86 percent of the country’s currency illegal.

Forbes added that the Indian government has not engaged in anything “so immoral” since Indira Gandhi’s forced sterilisation drive in the 1970s.

Not since India’s short-lived forced-sterilisation programme in the 1970s – this bout of Nazi-like eugenics was instituted to deal with the country’s “overpopulation” – has the government engaged in something so immoral.

Steve Forbes

An economy, which is predominantly based on cash, is forced to operate informally because of the excessive rules and taxes, Forbes pointed out. An inefficient bureaucracy only worsens the situation further.

The government bureaucracy is notorious for its red tape, lethargy and corruption, forcing people to get by on their wits.

Steve Forbes

Demonetisation is “a massive theft on people’s property,” Forbes said.

The Wall Street Journal Calls Note Ban ‘Bizarre’

The Wall Street Journal has also slammed the note ban. In an editorial, the publication pointed out flaws in the implementation of what it termed India’s “bizarre war on cash”.

The editorial said that an estimated 95 percent of all transactions in the country are cash, while about 45 percent of the economy is “informal” or “off the books”.

When it’s prohibitively expensive to comply with every regulation, businesses that are otherwise legitimate stay underground. Without sweeping deregulation, going digital and cashless would strengthen bureaucrats to be even more intrusive and burdensome.

<i>The Wall Street Journal</i>

WSJ also refers to a guest column written by Amit Varma in the Sunday Times of India – and points out the percentage of cash transactions across the globe.

In Germany, where memories of communism and Nazism help citizens prize anonymity, some 80 percent of transactions are in cash. The US figure is 32 percent. In Japan and Switzerland savers hoard cash to avoid punitive negative interest rates on deposits.

<i>The Wall Street Journal</i>

In his column, Varma writes:

Trying to make India cashless is akin to putting a bullock cart in an F1 race, and whipping the driver because he’s too slow... My objection here is not to cashlessness per se, but to the coercion implicit in the currency swap of November 8 and its aftermath. A cashless society would only be good if we evolve towards it, not if we are forced into it.

Also Read: Note Ban & Inconvenience: If Only The Media Depicted Public Wrath

Calling it a “humanitarian disaster”, Varma also points out that the BJP is constantly changing the narrative – what began as a war against black money is now an attempt to make India a cashless society.

The three pieces call the move immoral, bizarre and disastrous, among other things, highlighting the way Indian farmers, landless labourers and daily wage workers have been rendered helpless and cashless by the move.

Where does this leave us? While some have resorted to digital transactions to stay afloat, others are forced to stare into an uncertain future. With the note ban having eroded both livelihoods and savings, the country continues to struggle with a corrupt and inept banking system and normalcy remains a distant dream.

(With inputs from The Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times of India and Forbes.)