What must Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi do?
Last week, the Reserve Bank of India reported that 99.3 per cent worth of cancelled big denomination notes last November in what is referred to as "demonetisation" has been accounted for.
Demonetisation, Modi said at the time and later, was entirely his decision.
The reason for this drastic measure — some 100 people died of the emotional and physical stress, millions went through hardships as their money in the bank became nearly inaccessible to them temporarily — was to bring the rich who made money illegally into books.
Not one profiteer has been arrested on this count so far.
In effect, the Congress Party leader and former finance minister, P. Chidambaram, says 99. 3 per cent was splurged to bring to light the remaining fraction: Rs2.25 trillion lost to demonetise Rs130 billion(Dh6.7 billion).
In a recent editorial, The Guardian said Modi should be owning up his mistake and apologising to the public.
The Guardian does not grasp Indian politics too well. If Modi admits that his favourite personal policy decision as a mistake, he might as well pull the trigger on himself.
And he would be dragging BJP, his party, down to hell, where he would be presumably be headed for posthumously if the social media led by the liberals is any indication.
That the ghosts of demonetisation have come out screaming coincidentally with last week’s arrest of six leading human rights activists across the country for fomenting a Dalit riot on January 1 in Maharashtra and apparently plotting the assassination of the prime minister, have not helped the general image of the government.
The police produced no evidence, and the Supreme Court granted bail to all the arrested.
The air was rife with talks of ‘undeclared Emergency,’ a throwback to the dark days of 1975 when the then (Congress Party, now in the Opposition) prime minister, Indira Gandhi suspended civil rights and declared a State of Emergency.
Measure that misfired
The plot to kill the prime minister is a romance that the BJP favours to bring to the attention of the public every once in a while to show the selfless sacrificial role of Modi, incidentally a role that the prime minister likes to stress on in his speeches.
The ghosts of demonetisation are going to haunt Modi and his party for long. By all accounts, the measure has misfired. Despite the fact that the share market is at an all time height, employment figures have fallen.
Trade deficit has widened. The Indian rupee has been on a free fall, crossed Rs70 to the dollar. Fuel prices have been soaring.
Besides the general election, a process that will end on May 15, 2019, assembly polls to three states, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, are scheduled to be held late in 2018. The way it is going, Modi would be in luck if someone actually plotted against his life and failed.
Choice between society and economy
Last week, T. N. Ninan, a former newspaper editor and a highly regarded columnist, said that Modi came to power in 2014 asking people to choose between society and economy.
The voters opted for economy, Ninan says. He adds that the people now have neither. This is not entirely correct. What Modi said and hoped for then was that development would transcend social divisions, and act like an adhesive. He did not say, ‘society and economy’ were mutually exclusive. But the fact remains that social divisions in caste and ideology have acquired more edge in the absence of any tangible economic gains.
To me, a fundamental problem plaguing the Modi enterprise is a lack of education.
By this I don’t mean a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, though that wouldn’t harm anyone.
What I have in mind by education is a sophistication of ideas. A semi-literacy of intellect afflicts Modi’s cabinet too. It is made up of people mostly guided by the naive notion that Hindu scriptures have anticipated all crises, and prescribed solutions to them.
Modi has many great qualities. Courage is one of them. A cunning street smartness is another. Neither go far enough to perpetuate the legacy he craves to leave behind.
What Modi needs most of all just now are crash courses in humanities and economics. These are available online. And he could do this at his discretion. And Modi needs to reshuffle his cabinet.
No Indian government in recent times has a more crying need for critical and creative brains. Modi must realise a one-man government is no government. It is in effect a dictatorship.
And that in short is the story of demonetisation.
C.P. Surendran is a senior journalist based in India.
