Demonetization - Why many are still not convinced ?

 

Many are still not convinced because of following key reasons, in no particular order. There are many more reasons but I personally feel these are the critical ones.

1. Genuine Implementation Issues: I have already mentioned in my previous blogs that Modi government has completely messed up implementation. Whatever be the reason and whether they are justifiable or not, Modi has come across as extremely reactive in entire demonetization rollout. He has not made a good execution plan due to which comman man is sandwiched (and even dying) between Modi’s great initiative and the corrupt politicians, business folks, hawala operators and others arm-chair experts.
2. Time taken to replace all old currency notes: Many of the media report (with detailed calculations) have shown that it can take upto May 2017 to replace all of old 500 and 1000 notes. This has been run as “breaking news” by various media again and again. Rightfully and as expected, this has scared the comman man.
3. Lack of quick benefits/results: We no longer have the patience to wait for anything. We want results overnight. Many with vested interest are downplaying long term results of these initiatives, scaring others and playing with public emotion due to which folks are simply going berserk and restless.
4. Indian mentality: I dare to term this as Indian mentality because many of us have grown up (based on our ecosystem and surroundings) to be an expert and critic of everything, trying to always find fault than working to resolve that. We (be general public or media or anybody on the street) are always pessimistic than optimistic and feel extremely proud to sit back, relax and find fault with anything and everything and probably expect someone else to fix it. Nothing wrong in that and it is great that people have found fault but more often than not, what you do with that defines you. Sadly, many simply twiddle thumbs and soothe own’s ego by finding loop holes and mistakes in a plan that other so called leaders and experts missed
5. Politicians: Politicians, as usual, are playing politics and not making any progress. Media report says ruling government is open for a debate (without a vote) and opposition is just yelling and screaming without making any sense because they want to simply vote this plan out without waiting for results. Opposition is missing a golden opportunity to corner government and force them to take effective steps. Opposition themselves know that demonetization and other such initiatives will yield results over a period of time and not immediately but then politicians also knows very well how to create a frenzy in India.
6. Media: Most of the media continues to do it job, just their job definition is to always shows and report what is not working again and again and again and again.. and again as “breaking news”. In the war of TRP and their own definition of democracy, these folks have dropped ethics and social causes from their system many years ago

One can add many more reasons on top of above but the bottom line is Indians are more eager to hear bad news than good news. Many keep changing TV channels, newspaper pages, WhatsApp and Face book posts to see what is bad at the moment. This is what all politicians (doesn’t matter who is in ruling or who is in opposition), media and other experts have figured out many years ago and accordingly performs their part well to play with our emotions. 


Go read my first blog on demonetization on how this should not be just last step but one of the initial step toward checking terrorism, counterfeits, corruption, organized crime etc., etc., There is never going to be a foolproof system and there will always be experts (be terrorist or politicians or other corrupt individuals or even a comman man on the street) to find loopholes and break the system. It does not mean that no one should do anything to fix, fixes will be in multiple steps. There is no one fix for all our problems. Irrespective of what your expertise says, if there was one fix for all solution, someone (including judiciary and you yourself) would have already pushed for such reforms. 

All said and done, what is the worst that will happen if this demonetization and other subsequent scheme fails? Our economy will take longer time to recover, we will never vote BJP back into power which means it will be again a congress government in one form or other! Black money will continue to flourish (be due to corruption or evading taxes). With congress being back in power, we will again go back to days of hearing a scam everyday, some of which (like 2G and coal scam) would be more that lakhs crores !! We will again yell and scream that government is looting us and not doing anything to eliminate corruption, completely forgetting that someone dared to put his political career and entire goodwill at stake in November 2016 to do something!

Imagine if this was the ecosystem during Mahatma Gandhi time, we might not have attained independence at that time easily because everything he (and other freedom fighter says or does) would have been critized by media, oppositions, everyone on the street and we public would have happily spread the negativities on social media without joining in the good causes.

Conclusion:

Each one of you have been yelling and screaming over last many years that government is not taking any big or bold step to overhaul our system and if Modi has dared to do something, everyone wants to bring him down, probably because folks wants results overnight, do not want to come out of their comfort zone and are not OK to sacrifice. If this continues, no other leader (be politician or otherwise) will ever dare to do anything because they will be afraid that they will fail even before they start.

Continue to crucify Modi on a badly executed plan but do not write off the intentions so early. It is in our hands whether we want any scheme to succeed or not. Positive public participance can make a poorly planned scheme a great success, similarly no or negative public participance can fail miserably a well-planned scheme.

I still feel that in the longer run, we have not much to lose but lot to gain, if Modi continues his cleanliness drive with complete honestly and integrity. Our focus should be to ensure and compel Modi to take many more such measures to address corruption and many other issues.