NaMoDeMo – The Great Modi Flop Show

Do you know what today is? INDIAN FOOLS DAY.

The good news is, Urijit has finished counting the notes.

The bad news? 99% of all the demonetized notes in November 2016 have come back. And through the legal, banking route, not by paying fines on black money.

This, my friends, is what is called a FLOP SHOW.

So, the verdict is out: Harvard is better than stupid, mindless “Hard Work.” Amartya Sen, Manmohan Singh, and all the other economists worldwide who condemned the Demonetization move as badly thought out were all correct. The collection of clowns that is running this country was wrong.

So, Mere Pyaare Deshwaasiyon! Understand that ALL THE SACRIFICES you made –

  • Standing in long lines;
  • Having no cash for essentials;
  • Day labourers being fired and being forced to go back to their villages because contractors had no money to pay them;
  • People dying in ATM queues because of the strain;
  • People dying because their loved ones had no cash to admit those with emergencies to hospitals;
  • Small business closing down all over the country because they were primarily reliant on cash to pay their workers;
  • Farmers going bankrupt because the entire rural economy runs on cash;
  • A sharp drop in industrial output;
  • A spectacular drop in GDP;
  • The crash of the stock market;
  • The inability of many people to use the Indian Railways (because many railway stations did not have the facility to accept cards until January 2017);
  • The inability of trucks to ply, as most of them operated on cash;
  • The devastation of the real estate sector;
  • Massive job losses; and
  • The decrease of the RBI dividend to the government

All these were for NOTHING. A waste.

The government USED YOU for their PUBLICITY STUNT, which backfired!

This is “ULLU BANAOING” of the highest level!

Additionally, there was no reduction in terrorist activity, either in Kashmir or in Maoist areas, and counterfeiters quickly learned to copy the new Rs. 2000 notes.

The entire demonetization scheme was a COLOSSAL FAILURE.

And it is a lot more than that.

It is an act of CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

Why did we go through so much pain FOR NOTHING?

Because the PM did not bother to ask experts for their opinion. He did not consult his own party leaders. Even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley did not know this was coming. Only Hasmukh Adhia, Union Financial Services Secretary, and a small team working under him, knew what was happening.

And who gave this brilliant idea of demonetization to the PM? Not some famous economist – oh no, after all, the PM is allergic to “Harvard” – no, he got this idea from a certain Mr. Anil Bokil, a mechanical engineer by profession, belonging to a Hindu right-wing “economic” think tank – who got the ear of the PM only because he was a Hindu right-winger. Just on the basis of this one man’s opinion, un-vetted by any other senior person in the finance ministry, other than Mr. Adhia, un-vetted by other party leaders, in complete secrecy, a policy was crafted that involved removing 86% of cash from the country in an instant.

This, my friends, is THE HEIGHT OF IRRESPONSIBILITY.

It should be noted that Mr. Bokil got 2 hours to pitch his ideas to the PM.

Earlier, during UPA rule, he had tried to talk to Rahul Gandhi with the same ideas, but Rahul Gandhi gave him only 15 seconds before dismissing him.

I must say, I have a lot more respect for Rahul Gandhi, and a lot less for Narendra Modi, after this.

If someone had committed a blunder like this, or even a fourth as bad as this, in any private company, or in any other government, he would be fired on the spot.

Mr. Modi, Mr. Jaitley and this entire government should resign for its MONUMENTAL INCOMPETENCE.

They should be prosecuted and put in jail for CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE.

Mr. Modi is not fit to be even a junior minister of a state, given his methods of running the government. A leader who does not consult experts before taking decisions is not fit for leadership.

This is what you get when you have a bunch of half-wits running the country. Monkeys at the wheel.

Many defenders of Mr. Modi and his government have tried to tell me, “But what would you have him rather do? Do nothing about black money?”

That reminds me of an anecdote that I heard from a friend long ago. This guy also studied at an IIT, albeit a different one. He told me of a time when he had taken a computer science class, on Data Structures. Now, in the class, they teach you about various data structures that are useful in programming. Our friend’s preparation for the final exam was incomplete: he had studied some data structures well, but not the rest.

Unfortunately for him, the professor asked a question from the structures he had NOT STUDIED, in the final exam. So what does our friend do?

He crossed out the question, wrote the question for the structure he knew, and wrote down the answer.

The professor gave him zero marks for the question.

Of course, our Hindu right friends would probably argue that “after all, he tried something” and so he should have gotten some marks for his “effort.”

Sorry, you only get marks for the right answer. A bad answer can be worse than no answer – and that is what this experience proves. Sure, you should do something about black money – but you need to do it carefully, with a lot of planning, involving a lot of wise people – now THAT is called leadership.

Raiot

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Dr. Seshadri Kumar Written by:

Seshadri Kumar is an R&D Chemical Engineer with a B.Tech from IIT Bombay and an M.S. and a PhD from the University of Utah, U.S. He writes regularly on political, social, economic, and cultural affairs at http://www.leftbrainwave.com

One Comment

  1. Manjeet
    August 31, 2017
    Reply

    Nothing could be more ridiculous than this article. Author is filled with so much disdain for Modi, he has forgotten to give concrete more scholarly reasoning for failure of demonetization. Gentleman seems to be nobody trying to get cheap publicity by attacking Modi . None knows the outcome of demonetization as yet but it seems critics like this will pass judgement in a hurry.

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