An old M.R. Radha joke runs like this in one of his movies famous for his witty lines. He gives a dud cheque to a friend who calls him to account for writing it without having the funds to support it as it bounced back from the bank. And the comedian then comes up with the classic line, “Have you considered the bank might be bankrupt”.
I was reminded of it when the risible line came from the officer of the Canara Bank on St. Mary’s Road on Saturday morning that I, being a senior citizen and all, could only draw Rs 2,000 from my savings account. “We are short of cash” was the explanation.
To such ridiculous depths are we descended after the great economic masterstroke has left the banks so short of cash that they have to cringe before the public who believe that have a right to get their hands at least at their own legal tender deposited in a nationalised bank. Being an honest taxpayer who has not one rupee beyond what is legally in the bank and such, it hit me how insulting this process known as demonitisation has become to the ordinary Indian.
The old notes I had to put back in the system after November 9 took a few seconds less to tot up on the automated counting machine than the Moulivakkam 11-storey building took in coming down. A government that does not allow me to redeem even the money for monthly expenses drawn from the same branch must be a mean one indeed. And this is not angst as much as a feeling of desolation I write with at where we are headed if we have to make everyone suspect in the eyes of the law just to catch the few who may have been cavalier with the matter of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s due.
A threat of inking may been a mean blow aimed at the basic honesty of Indians, but to deny them notes of the realm like this shows how ill prepared they were in this gigantic exercise that is supposed to take us towards becoming a cashless society in which everyone would also be paying close to what he owes Caesar. The idealism behind the exercise is to be appreciated, but it is in the execution that we have displayed typical Indian ‘efficiency’ invoking Murphy’s Law as anything that should go wrong has gone wrong since the midnight of November 8.
Never mind if everything is going to be hunky-dory soon as the presses are running full speed in Mysuru and elsewhere. But what use is it if, like Cauvery water, it does not reach the end users in time? The present scene is of no threat to a person who has a debit card and at least three credit cards in his wallet and the means to use every electronic payment method possible to keep afloat in the meantime. But how do you pay the monthly salaries of the cook, the maid, the milkman, the driver, the newspaper vendor and the watchman? Imagine having to go to the bank and impossible seven days a week to draw Rs 10,000 less than what you are entitled to — Rs 24,000 a week? The Finance Minister should know the math does not add up.
Even as the poor are scrambling for their daily bread, the big sharks are finding ways to retain as much of their cash stash as they can. In return for their honesty the poor get assurances every day in media notes from the Reserve Bank that there is sufficient money. So, when does it get to the people?
In the long run we are all dead, said John Maynard Keynes. If you were one of the unfortunate 50 or so, you might even have died long before they have totaled all the benefits from this great economic measure aimed to rein in about 6 per cent of non-tax paid black money in the GDP while 86% of the cash economy is wondering where the next note is coming from.
At the most basic level, this move looks like good politics, but very bad economics in the short term. And we are all mere pawns in this grandiose game.
What happens if the supply chains that are creaking stop altogether? Tomorrow — why even in this quarter or the next — China will be growing faster than India after this demonetisation. At least then our rulers can stop boasting of the fastest growing economy in the world, which they have hobbled now in the grand hope of a gain in the distant future. At the most basic level, this move looks like good politics, but very bad economics in the short term. And we are all mere pawns in this grandiose game. Ends
Even as I was sizing up what to do to get the monthly cash for December, I get a call from a financial agent from an unknown number saying would I recommend people to change money. He was the alchemist changing worthless paper to gold or, even better, or dollars or even money in a foreign account like all those guys in the Panama Papers and the HSBC leaks from Europe. The discounts begin at around 20% and may stretch to even 100 percent as in purchasing gold. This just goes to show that there is a huge grey market for changing from black to white, which means e
