With November 8 forming the backdrop, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardass Modi’s decision to address the nation again on the eve of New Year had understandably raised a lot of expectations.
As it turned out on Saturday night, it ended in a whimper and the hopes of the nation were dashed at a crucial turn of the year. Those who expected to hear from the PM that there, in the minimum, was an early way out of the demonetisation disaster, got no promise of the kind.
Modi went round and round, and delivered little other than announcing minor concessions in the housing sector for the lower strata of society and some other minor sops. These, however, could not qualify themselves to be an escape route for the besieged Modi-led NDA government that has sown the demonetisation seed and heaped a harvest of disaster for the nation.
Modi, in fact, made no promise now unlike what he did in early November. His offer then was that he needed 50 days to solve the currency crunch in the country in the aftermath of his withdrawal of as high as 86 per cent of the cash from circulation.
It spawned a monster, left the nation bleeding, put people’s patience to test, and their newfound ordeal to withdraw their own cash from banks was callously taken for granted. Serious hiccups both in the printing of new notes and in their circulation through banks and ATMs remain unsolved.
Banks are caught in a season of gloom. Hardly any ATM in the country is functioning as usual; many are fully defunct, and some of them are giving out cash for brief periods and idle away time for the rest of the day.
While the supposed aim of demonetisation was to eject fake currency, fight black money menace and stop terror financing by anti-national elements, it created a new situation of extreme corruption of and racketeering in the money circuit.
Bank officials apparently colluded with vested interests and sharks in the financial sector to hoard the new currency, and racketeers and commission agents in cash exchange surfaced almost everywhere.
Hoarding of notes became the order of the day, and the Union Government as also the RBI seemed to be throwing their hands up. While the government expected at least four to five lakh crores of old currency would not come back to banks, and would go down the drains, there was no such windfall of a major order.
The maximum of disappearance of notes could, by last count, be of the order of a couple of lakh crores — no great shakes considering the magnitude of the chaos, time, effort and loss to the exchequer that the national economy suffered.
Economic growth has seen a fall as a result of the demonetisation as both the industrial and farm sectors have been badly hit. The Prime Minister has either gloated over these aspects or made light of things in his 45-minute long address with a rare sense of detachment.
His big talks enthused none. Worse, he has not even extended an apology to the nation for his failure to keep his word that things would be set right in 50 days’ time or by the end of December.
Modi claimed that he was spearheading a Shuddhi Yajna (cleansing ritual) for the nation. Clearly he is not able to see the resentment, even a sense of provocation, which is rising among people across the board.
Many have lost their jobs in the absence of money circulation, many have not been able to run their industrial units, and farmers have no money to pay for seeds and labour. Modi claims Rabi sowing this time saw a six per cent increase, and so did the rate of sale of fertilisers despite the note ban.
It is one thing to juggle with figures and quite another to turn a blind eye to ground realities. Winning a few civic elections by itself is no proof of popularity of the PM or the Union Government.
Local issues mattered more than national issues in all such elections. Even the upcoming assembly polls in five states will be fought mainly on state-specific issues, but chances are also that the BJP will be taught a lesson for the recklessness with which demonetisation was spearheaded by Modi and his men.
There already are perceptions that it is the beginning of the end of Modi. The lack of nerve and lack of verve in his speech Saturday is further proof that he is caught in a serious situation from which redemption is difficult.
