In a move that took all media pundits and his own support base by complete surprise, PM Narendra Modi announced that effective midnight, 8^th November 2016, 500 and 1000 rupee bills will cease to be accepted as legal tenders.  This is one of the most decisive blows dealt to the malignant evil of corruption aided by black money.  With this move, the wily Prime Minister of India has demonstrated both strategic acumen and immense political willpower. A short analysis of this move and its implications is attempted below.

To start with, as FM Arun Jaitley told Times Now, this operation was ongoing at the highest level of government and bureaucracy for over 6 months. This is the second time (the surgical strike inside Pak occupied Kashmir was first ) that Modi’s government has shown its capability of building and maintaining walls of secrecy that neither the Lutyen’s  supposedly omnipresent old boy’s network nor the media-babu nexus can breach. The level of ruthless efficiency it must have taken to involve numerous officials in the finance ministry as well as in the RBI on a need to know basis without letting anyone have even the vaguest idea of the larger picture is truly mind boggling. It also demonstrates the Prime Minister and his team’s ability to trust the right set of people for an operation of this criticality.

The timing of this move is important in the view of the assembly elections over next one year or so in several important states including Uttar Pradesh.  Moving large amounts of cash needed for fixing elections is nearly impossible with 100 being the highest denomination from the old lot. What is equally important is that the government waited for the Hindu festival season to get over with Diwali before implementing this measure. Traditionally, this is the time when most of the middle class would have already made their major cash purchases and depleted its savings. This would mean the middle class and the lower middle class has less to worry about on this front.

In his communication, PM also pre-empted teething problems in implementation and invoked the patriotic spirit of ordinary citizens. He cited the sacrifices made by the woman who sold goat to build toilet in her village as an example of how common Indians are willing to suffer for the larger cause of nation building. Over the next 2 days, the possibility of a few inconveniences to ordinary people getting blown out of proportion exists and this appeal helped to set the expectations to a certain extent.  Also by allowing institutions like hospitals, petrol pump, airports and railway booking counters to accept cash for the next two days, the government has ensured that essential services will not suffer.

It will be interesting to observe if there is an attempt to block this step by involving the judiciary which in the recent past has shown its willingness to exceed its brief. However, from a petition viewpoint, it is difficult to see what moral position can be taken to use as a ground to file petition. Also as corruption is a highly sensitive subject across socio-religious backgrounds, it will be difficult for a political party to take a position of open opposition. The real reaction from the government’s opponents might come in form of increased hostilities in other forms similar to the highly dubious award wapsi movement a year ago. The fact that the Prime Minister consulted the Chiefs of Armed Forces on the day he made this announcement shows that he expects some amount of law and order issues arising out of it and is willing to deal with it.

A final sobering note. If this operation was going on for last 6 months, it meant it started around the time the Right Wing supporters were fighting a very divisive battle over RBI governor Raghuram Rajan getting a second term. And this decision came on the day that the NDA government took possibly its worse social media drubbing by its own support base over the NDTV ban issue. I will not ask you to change your stand on NDTV ban because of government’s decision to ban 500/1000 bills,  I will however ask you to look within and examine if the high engagement, noisy place that is today’s social media has  knocked your perspective askew.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. It sounds like a sensible piece of advice to keep in mind while participating in today’s discourse.