Demonetization II

An enterprise be undertaken after being thoroughly thought through; to pause and ponder after the decision is taken and the ball is set rolling is a blemish on intelligence.

                                                                                                                                    Thiruvalluvar

(translation not literal)

The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer – often, indeed, to the decider himself.

John F. Kennedy

(In pursuance of Wanchoo Committee recommendations on demonetization) When Y.B. Chavan told Indira Gandhi about the proposal for demonetization and his view that it should be accepted and implemented forthwith, she asked Chavan only one question: ‘Chavanji, are no more elections to be fought by the Congress Party?’ Chavan got the message and the recommendation was shelved.

Bibek Debroy quoting in the Open Magazine

As the motley, malingering opposition smirk and simper that they have laid the Government low and successfully scuttled functioning of the Parliament’s winter session, little do they realise that this is negation of the very doctrine of democracy.

It is the prerogative of the elected Government to frame policies, introduce legislation and implement their policies during their reign. They have the people’s express mandate to do so. The opposition’s duty is to marshal their arguments and counter the Government’s policies and lay bare the chinks in the Government’s armour, given the impossibility of anything being perfect. When an issue is debated, nuances not known earlier become clear to the decider himself.

The Indian lawmakers have now brought a new, frightening dimension to democracy. Any political party with a few abject seats can effectively bring the Parliament to its knees and stonewall legislative function. In the process they can nullify the electoral verdict of the people. This calls into question the very need for elections, votes and the majority party taking over the reins. This is jugulating democracy.

Kushwant Singh once lamented that no quotable quote was to be found in any of the speeches of Parliamentarians, indicating their own intellectual deficit as well as that of the ghost writers. Now even that kind of vacuous discussion has been rendered out of question.

In exercise of its prerogative, the Government of the day will take and implement certain decisions. All decisions will not always bear the desired efficacy. Some will go wrong. Every decision is underpinned by certain variables; premised on certain reasonable assumptions and perception of behaviroural pattern of the segments targeted. Even supposing for argument sake, the present decision on demonetization has gone wrong; it is absurd to argue that velleity is preferable to venturesome initiatives. The litmus test is whether the decision was taken in good faith and sincerely believed to be in furtherance of national interests.

And who can cast the first stone? The grapevine had it that on the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated, an important functionary of the party left for Switzerland even before the funeral. If true, he could not have gone for an eyeful of scenic splendour.

In India’s chequered history, there have been decisions with far greater disastrous consequences for the nation. The 1962 Chinese debacle is likened by certain historians to juvenile trust in a courtship. The ideological blinkers India put on and the economic decisions flowing therefrom throttled economic growth, killed the Indian entrepreneurial spirits and India became the only country in the globe, as Time magazine put it succinctly, where excess production was penalised. (Many of the current generation may not be aware of the dreaded licenced capacity and the need for its religious adherence). The subsistence had to be helped in no small measure by American PL 480 handouts of food grains. India was hobbled in every possible way from realising her full commercial and industrial potential. Inevitably, soon enough, bankruptcy stared at our face, and in the most humiliating moment of  Indian history, gold had to be lifted and physically pledged abroad to borrow foreign exchange, as no country in the world would trust an Indian Government’s IOU. In 1991 the country was literally scraping the barrel as sovereign default on forex deposits loomed large. It was the path-breaking decision of P.V. Narasimha Rao to implement economic policies advocated by Rajaji with remarkable foresight that saved the nation. It is a slap in the face of socialist maharajas that today we boast of a 370 billion forex reserve.

There are also counter view points about the inevitability of Operation Blue Star and its tragic consequences, not the least important of them being Pakistan getting a handle on Indian secessionist groups. The resounding victory of Bangladesh war and vivisection of Pakistan is still being ascribed by certain schools of thought to be the raison d’etre of Pakistan’s inexorable thrust to avenge by inflicting on India a similar vivisection and where else will they find a more fertile ground than Kashmir.

Leave alone the UPA’s economic decisions resulting in monumental plunder of the Indian exchequer, the opportunity cost of a decade of policy paralysis of UPA is colossal.

In the vicissitudes of a nation’s journey, there are bound to be injudicious decisions just as there will be epoch making ones turning her fortunes. The way ahead is not dereliction but extricating the country from unintended consequences and setting the economic juggernaut into motion. The opposition has failed the nation in this calling.