BJP Leaders Deny but Demonetisation wasn’t a Secret

In a discussion with NDTV during the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Power Minister Pijush Goyal reiterated that the entire cabinet remained in dark regarding the demonetisation drive of the Modi government and Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, kept the entire exercise secret and caught them in surprise by this decision.
This is the official version of the narrative that the mainstream media made us gulp since the fateful evening of 8 November and the entire nation was made to believe that the Modi government kept the entire demonetisation exercise secret from even the BJP leaders. Though we have seen BJP leaders tweeting the pictures of the new Rs 2,000 denomination note before the currency was officially released, or even BJP leaders either getting caught with Rs 4 crore of new currency notes or youth leaders of the saffron party in Salem, who claimed he will love to stand in the queue for the nation, getting caught with Rs 20 lakh of cash in new currency notes when the entire country and its poor people are reeling in a cash crisis, yet we were compelled by the corporate media to accept the assertion of the Modi government in utmost good faith.
The middle-class citizens, who hailed the decision of the government, agreed with Modi when he said that if the black money hoarders knew about the decision even 72 hours prior to the decision made public they could have managed some way out. Modi’s chest thumped again in self-glorification by asserting that the secrecy of the move was his master stroke and it has actually shattered black money hoarders and corrupt people. We the people were left with no option but to agree with the prime minister and hail him like the cheerleading Hindutva mob that raised the hail Modi slogan when he was quoting WhatsApp messages regarding a beggar using a swipe machine in Mumbai.

Demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes was never a secret for black money hoarders

We never asked how did the prime minister and his party colleagues utilise their access to the knowledge of the events to unfurl and how did they manage to sort their personal cash worries? The nation, to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi broadcasts his thoughts through a one-way radio programme, is still not aware of the very uncomfortable fact that the Modi government and its corporate media buddies are trying to conceal – the decision of demonetisation was out, and it was out long back in April 2016. The source of this information isn’t from any conspiracy theory monger, but from the very top echelon of the corporate news hierarchy, the Times Group.
We have already mentioned in another article how the Modi government’s decision to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were known to the black money hoarders, share traders, politicians, mafia, mining barons, and corporate tycoons back in April 2016, when this article was published in the Times of India on the sudden surge of cash in the economy. Then the news of demonetisation was termed as a ‘rumour’ by the State Bank of India and it’s quite unlikely that the government of India and its ministers like Mr Goyal didn’t hear about it back then.
When Mr Goyal, in his official capacity as a minister, is speaking something in a public forum like the HT Leadership Summit, then the words must be counted as official statement, which, in this case, amounts to blatant lying as when such rumours, which were even known to the public sector banks, were making rounds seven months before the demonetisation exercise, then how can Mr Goyal and his cabinet colleagues, who are close to the industry barons and corporate tycoons, remain in dark about such a probability? It can’t be possible for the government top bosses to not know something that is affecting the economy and if the government came to know about the leak of information at such an early stage then what were the steps that it took to control the leak and do a course correction by changing the strategy? Mr Goyal and his colleagues may simply say they do not subscribe to Times of India!
If the government did not change its strategy and plan of action even after the information of its clandestine action plan to demonetise the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 was leaked to unscrupulous elements, months before the implementation, then it clearly signals that the Modi government is hand-in-glove with the black money hoarders, as the opposition is alleging. Then it clearly signals that the entire demonetisation exercise is not targeted at eliminating black money hoarded in cash, rather inflate the deposit ratio in the banks and revive their funding capacity using the public deposits. This money, in this era of lowered interest rates, will flow fast to the corporate houses. Though the money will go from the public sector banks as loan towards the ‘development of the nation’ by the corporate houses, they will soon end up as Non Performing Assets or bad loans for the banks and in some years they will be written off. A good plan to assist the corporate houses to earn an immense profit using the money of the common people. Modi will surely try to blend the draconian Land Acquisition Act drafted in 2015 with his upcoming ‘crusade’ against benami land and property by packaging it in the usual ‘nationalist‘ and ‘patriotic‘ box manufactured by the Nagpur based RSS.

Goyal irked by Krugman’s criticism

Piyush Goyal also criticised the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman for his negative remarks regarding Narendra Modi government’s demonetisation drive and said that the Nobel Institution does not give any certificate to the Nobel Laureates that whatever they say is truth. He said that he believes that Krugman was wrong in his gentle criticism of Modi’s demonetisation exercise.
The Nobel laureates are definitely the members of the sentry brigade of the international monopoly and finance capital, as people who vehemently oppose capitalism are never awarded the Nobel Prize, which comes from a fund set up by a man who sold the predatory dynamite across the world. Paul Krugman was actually not criticising the government with his ambiguous statements about the problems that the demonetisation drive ‘may‘ cause, he was actually issuing an expert warning to the Indian ruling clique to prepare a damage control mechanism. The 63-year-old economist was optimistic about the growth of the Indian economy following the path charted by the neo-liberal economic doctrine set in motion by the World Bank, IMF, and the WTO. Champions of globalisation and Americanisation of the world are only worried about the repercussions that may affect the super-profit extraction machinery working overtime in India.
A few days back, even Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and former World Bank employee cum former Indian finance and prime minister, Manmohan Singh, expressed their strong disapproval of the demonetisation exercise. Singh, who was very cunningly projected by the mainstream media as a soft-spoken and shy politician to enable him to formulate the most draconian economic policies without getting distracted towards public outrage or discourses against his government’s policies, suddenly donned the attire of a sharp critic of the demonetisation policy and spoke aggressively against it in the Rajya Sabha. Stunning the prime minister and his sycophants, this speech was highlighted by the mainstream corporate media in the line of its practice to portray Manmohan Singh in the brightest shades.
The opposition of both Amartya Sen and Manmohan Singh were based on the anticipation of a massive crisis in the economy due to this exercise that has more gimmick to it than substance, and they are concerned about the effects of the forthcoming crisis on the finance and monopoly capital of big foreign multinational corporations invested in India. These criticisms, coming from Nobel laureate economists and World Bank deputed agents, against the demonetisation drive are more about taking effective steps to protect the profitability of the multinational corporations and their Indian comprador allies and enterprises, and these concerns have nothing to do with the inconvenience faced by the people and the economic crisis that looms large on the fate of the nation.

Allergic to criticism?

Alike other hardcore Sangh volunteer, Piyush Goyal probably failed to comprehend what the professor of the City University of New York was referring to and took the opportunity to bash him like the BJP bash any of its opponent irrespective of what they say or do. The critical remarks made by the power minister in a forum like the Hindustan Times Leadership Series again proved that how fascistic the Modi regime is and how it’s scared of even the most harmless criticism of its policies.
The power minister’s criticism of Krugman was not only in poor taste but it also lacked any substance of understanding and was centred around dodging a mild attack on Modi government’s policy by a well-known economist. Piyush Goyal kept batting on behalf of the government by saying irrelevant things on behalf of the demonetisation drive and proved again how mediocrity is promoted throughout the rank and file of the RSS. The anchors or the guests were luckily the representatives of the most elite part of India and hence they didn’t think about asking Mr Goyal where and when did he and his family members and his colleagues in the cabinet as well as in the BJP and its parent body RSS changed their old currency notes to the new ones? Or they were cashless since a long time? We certainly will keep putting this question as the common people neither saw the saffron party leaders or ministers like Mr Goyal standing in any queue, which Modi is calling the last queue of all queues. The question will keep haunting the saffron bloc for a long time to come.