Shajida Khan
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So is china,
http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/e...s/news-story/7e4a796bc1401d593f5cc58d7fd32ecb
Extreme torture: Inside China’s correctional facilities
For all intents and purposes, India is a banana republic, a wretched place...
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So is china,
http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/e...s/news-story/7e4a796bc1401d593f5cc58d7fd32ecb
Extreme torture: Inside China’s correctional facilities
Where do you get the numbers for indians and chinese ??
ThinkLogically
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That is another thread. The census bureau collects this data - I do not think Indian households make $105000 median income
ThinkLogically
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Wow i thought 1 pakistani = 10 indians? or has ratio become 1:2 now
Mangus Ortus Novem
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"Gold Is Now Effectively Illegal" In India - The Consequences Of Creating A Cashless Society
Jayant Bhandari warns "there are clear signs that in a very convoluted way, possession of gold for investment purposes will be made illegal" as he discusses India's attempts to create a cashless society (and consequences of it) and why precious metals and geographical diversification are the most viable options investors around the world, not just India, should be taking.
"The situation is getting worse by the day... people are desperate"
Jayant provides the clearest explanation of where India is (and where it is going) in the brief interview with ProvenAndProbable.com's Maurice Jackson ...
As Jayant detailed previously, expect a continuation of new social engineering notifications, each sabotaging wealth-creation, confiscating people’s wealth, and tyrannizing those who refuse to be a part of the herd, in the process destroying the very backbone of the economy and civilization.
There are clear signs that in a very convoluted way, possession of gold for investment purposes will be made illegal. Expect capital controls to follow.
Gold Bullion Is Now Effectively Illegal
Assaults on people’s private property and the integrity of their homes through tax-raids continue. In a recent notification, government has made it clear that any ownership of jewelry above 500 grams of gold per married woman will be put under the microscopic scrutiny of tax authorities.
Steep taxes and penalties will be imposed on those who cannot prove the source of their gold. In India’s Orwellian new-speak this means that because bullion has not been explicitly mentioned, its ownership will be deemed to be illegal. Courts will do what Modi wants. Huge bribes will have to be paid.
Sane people are of course cleaning up their bank lockers. The secondary consequence of this will be a steep increase in unreported crimes, for people will be afraid of going to the police after a theft, fearing that the tax authorities will then ask questions. At the same time, the gold market has mostly gone underground, and apparently the volume of gold buying has gone up.
The salaried middle class is the consumption class, often heavily indebted. Poor people have limited amounts of gold. The government is merely doing what pleases the majority and their sense of envy, to the detriment of small businesses and savers. Now, the middle class is starting to face problems as well. This will worsen once the the impact of the destruction of small businesses becomes obvious.
India has always had a negative-yielding economy. It has suddenly become even more negative-yielding. Business risk has gone through the roof. Savers will be victimized. It is because of negative yields that Indian savers buy gold. They will buy more going forward.
Sane Indians should stay a step ahead of their rapacious government and the evolving totalitarian society, which are less and less inhibited by any institutions or values in support of liberty.
Conclusion
India will become a police state, likely with the full support of most Indians. Nationalism will be the thread that weaves them together. But it is a fake thread, devoid of any value. Eventually, there will be far too many stresses in the system, whose institutions are already in an advance stage of decay.
India as it exists today is a British creation. With the British now gone for 69 years, it is an entity has less and less reason to exist in its current form. The glue of reason that the British have applied is flaking, and it is doing so rapidly under the catalyst by name of Narendra Modi.
Jayant Bhandari warns "there are clear signs that in a very convoluted way, possession of gold for investment purposes will be made illegal" as he discusses India's attempts to create a cashless society (and consequences of it) and why precious metals and geographical diversification are the most viable options investors around the world, not just India, should be taking.
"The situation is getting worse by the day... people are desperate"
Jayant provides the clearest explanation of where India is (and where it is going) in the brief interview with ProvenAndProbable.com's Maurice Jackson ...
As Jayant detailed previously, expect a continuation of new social engineering notifications, each sabotaging wealth-creation, confiscating people’s wealth, and tyrannizing those who refuse to be a part of the herd, in the process destroying the very backbone of the economy and civilization.
There are clear signs that in a very convoluted way, possession of gold for investment purposes will be made illegal. Expect capital controls to follow.
Gold Bullion Is Now Effectively Illegal
Assaults on people’s private property and the integrity of their homes through tax-raids continue. In a recent notification, government has made it clear that any ownership of jewelry above 500 grams of gold per married woman will be put under the microscopic scrutiny of tax authorities.
Steep taxes and penalties will be imposed on those who cannot prove the source of their gold. In India’s Orwellian new-speak this means that because bullion has not been explicitly mentioned, its ownership will be deemed to be illegal. Courts will do what Modi wants. Huge bribes will have to be paid.
Sane people are of course cleaning up their bank lockers. The secondary consequence of this will be a steep increase in unreported crimes, for people will be afraid of going to the police after a theft, fearing that the tax authorities will then ask questions. At the same time, the gold market has mostly gone underground, and apparently the volume of gold buying has gone up.
The salaried middle class is the consumption class, often heavily indebted. Poor people have limited amounts of gold. The government is merely doing what pleases the majority and their sense of envy, to the detriment of small businesses and savers. Now, the middle class is starting to face problems as well. This will worsen once the the impact of the destruction of small businesses becomes obvious.
India has always had a negative-yielding economy. It has suddenly become even more negative-yielding. Business risk has gone through the roof. Savers will be victimized. It is because of negative yields that Indian savers buy gold. They will buy more going forward.
Sane Indians should stay a step ahead of their rapacious government and the evolving totalitarian society, which are less and less inhibited by any institutions or values in support of liberty.
Conclusion
India will become a police state, likely with the full support of most Indians. Nationalism will be the thread that weaves them together. But it is a fake thread, devoid of any value. Eventually, there will be far too many stresses in the system, whose institutions are already in an advance stage of decay.
India as it exists today is a British creation. With the British now gone for 69 years, it is an entity has less and less reason to exist in its current form. The glue of reason that the British have applied is flaking, and it is doing so rapidly under the catalyst by name of Narendra Modi.
Mangus Ortus Novem
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"The Crazy Economic Idea" of Demonetization: India's Prime Minister Modi's "Bank Transaction Tax" May Lead To Larger Conflicts
By Moon of Alabama
The current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has a history of racism and can be described as a neo-fascist. A more pleasant label is Hindu nationalist but that essentially means the same.
It now turns out that Modis extremism in not confined to the nationalist bend but includes some crazy economic ideas.
Modi decided to demonetize the country from one day to another. Every bank note valued at over US$7 was taken out of circulation. The rather crazy idea behind this is to move all monetary transactions to some electronic money systems and to then tax each and every transaction. All other kind of taxes would be abolished.
Only a lunatic without any knowledge of actual economic issues can support such a move.
The predictable result of the sudden demonetization is a liquidity crunch. There suddenly is only half the amount of money in circulation than before. Bills can not be paid, salaries are withheld, services are unused because there is no money to pay for them. The government wants to move the people to open up bank accounts but the banking infrastructure in India is rudimentary, the systems running are old and the software inadequate to handle the masses. Mobs Lock Up Bankers as Pay Day Turns Pain Day in India is a current Bloomberg headline.
The protests have not reached their climax yet but expect some serious riots in India over the next weeks and months should Modi continue on this path. It will be even worse when, in a second step, the new tax system is introduced.
Taxing all transactions is digressive. The poor will end up up paying more than the rich as all kinds of property taxes and the like will end. Estimates say that the tax rate would have to be 4 to 6% on each monetary transfer to be able to eliminate all other taxes.
Manufacturing, which builds complex products from a number of pre-processed parts and inputs, will end up highly taxed. Each screw in a part that goes into a car will have been taxed when transferred from the steelmaker to the wholesale steel deal to the screw maker to the part manufacturer to the car manufacturer to the consumer. With several percents of taxes on each of these transaction this will end up as a very expensive car. There are products which easily include a dozen such stages or more.
“Sin taxes” on alcohol, gasoline and other socially or environmentally harmful stuff will be missing as regulatory instruments. Custom issues and double taxation agreements with other countries will be highly problematic.
The Indian bureaucracy is not the most capable in the world. The banking infrastructure, especially in the still mostly rural parts of India, is only sparse. It is practically impossible to have such a brutal, large conversion of the whole economy without major breakdowns.
The first real economic trouble will be noted soon. Liquidity crunches are usually followed by sharp drops in productivity and general economic activity. India until recently had a fast growing economy. It is very likely to now go into recession.
Taxes on a currency will lead to a shadow economy where people will used other means to pay, especially for small daily transfers. The new currency will probably be cigarettes or whatever can be bargained. The tax income will therefore likely be lower than estimated as the use of official money, then electronic money, in daily life will decline.
Modi was in favor of a transaction tax economy since at least 2013 though it did not play a role in his campaign and policy speeches. The people are unprepared for it and the large bumps that will come with its implementation.
My fear though is that Modi will do the usual nationalist / fascist trick when problems with the economy occur. He is unlikely to give up on his aims. He will rather look for an enemy and accuse it of causing the problems. Divert the peoples attention by a war on – take your choice: Pakistan, China, Muslims in general, any local opposition or whatever. There will always be someone to blame.
So far Modi had a rather successful run as Premier. His tax project may well ruin that. Given his background his solution will likely be to seek a conflict. In a nuclear India with a nuclear arch-enemy Pakistan nearby that is some worrisome perspective.
By Moon of Alabama
The current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has a history of racism and can be described as a neo-fascist. A more pleasant label is Hindu nationalist but that essentially means the same.
It now turns out that Modis extremism in not confined to the nationalist bend but includes some crazy economic ideas.
Modi decided to demonetize the country from one day to another. Every bank note valued at over US$7 was taken out of circulation. The rather crazy idea behind this is to move all monetary transactions to some electronic money systems and to then tax each and every transaction. All other kind of taxes would be abolished.
Only a lunatic without any knowledge of actual economic issues can support such a move.
The predictable result of the sudden demonetization is a liquidity crunch. There suddenly is only half the amount of money in circulation than before. Bills can not be paid, salaries are withheld, services are unused because there is no money to pay for them. The government wants to move the people to open up bank accounts but the banking infrastructure in India is rudimentary, the systems running are old and the software inadequate to handle the masses. Mobs Lock Up Bankers as Pay Day Turns Pain Day in India is a current Bloomberg headline.
The protests have not reached their climax yet but expect some serious riots in India over the next weeks and months should Modi continue on this path. It will be even worse when, in a second step, the new tax system is introduced.
Taxing all transactions is digressive. The poor will end up up paying more than the rich as all kinds of property taxes and the like will end. Estimates say that the tax rate would have to be 4 to 6% on each monetary transfer to be able to eliminate all other taxes.
Manufacturing, which builds complex products from a number of pre-processed parts and inputs, will end up highly taxed. Each screw in a part that goes into a car will have been taxed when transferred from the steelmaker to the wholesale steel deal to the screw maker to the part manufacturer to the car manufacturer to the consumer. With several percents of taxes on each of these transaction this will end up as a very expensive car. There are products which easily include a dozen such stages or more.
“Sin taxes” on alcohol, gasoline and other socially or environmentally harmful stuff will be missing as regulatory instruments. Custom issues and double taxation agreements with other countries will be highly problematic.
The Indian bureaucracy is not the most capable in the world. The banking infrastructure, especially in the still mostly rural parts of India, is only sparse. It is practically impossible to have such a brutal, large conversion of the whole economy without major breakdowns.
The first real economic trouble will be noted soon. Liquidity crunches are usually followed by sharp drops in productivity and general economic activity. India until recently had a fast growing economy. It is very likely to now go into recession.
Taxes on a currency will lead to a shadow economy where people will used other means to pay, especially for small daily transfers. The new currency will probably be cigarettes or whatever can be bargained. The tax income will therefore likely be lower than estimated as the use of official money, then electronic money, in daily life will decline.
Modi was in favor of a transaction tax economy since at least 2013 though it did not play a role in his campaign and policy speeches. The people are unprepared for it and the large bumps that will come with its implementation.
My fear though is that Modi will do the usual nationalist / fascist trick when problems with the economy occur. He is unlikely to give up on his aims. He will rather look for an enemy and accuse it of causing the problems. Divert the peoples attention by a war on – take your choice: Pakistan, China, Muslims in general, any local opposition or whatever. There will always be someone to blame.
So far Modi had a rather successful run as Premier. His tax project may well ruin that. Given his background his solution will likely be to seek a conflict. In a nuclear India with a nuclear arch-enemy Pakistan nearby that is some worrisome perspective.
SBUS-CXK
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China is an ancient country with 5000 years. Dynastic politics has always been the heart of the country. So we have accumulated too much historical experience, know how to do better development. We also know how to appease public sentiment, how to solve the social public opinion.
So when US police aimed guns at their citizens. When the Indians in Kashmir, Manipur, Assam the killed and raped, beaten civilians.
We are even more shocked.
What you call "durable" means a durable, turbulent society?
SBUS-CXK
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See the "Troll" from a India American population. It's really interesting.I'm a Sikh not flying the Indian flag because Indians start calling me a Khalistani false flaggerChinese on this forum tend to troll Indians for obvious reasons, they are the nationalist ones who are motivated enough to go on the internet and on a Pakistani forum nonetheless. The average Chinese doesn't care and is interested in buying a house in America and how to get their kids to be born there so they can get American citizenship. They are the least bothered about what is happening in India or Pakistan, sorry that's the truth. They are nice people nonetheless, highly educated and with a low rate of crime.
So,But I would like to know about Obama's younger brother living in China for more than 12 years, what do you think? To tell the truth, Indians have too many nationalists. Hard to see sober reply. If you know TOI （times of India）....
somebozo
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Modi has already tried that but his surgical strikes are also as fake as his mandate and economic reforms. A simply solution to promote tax base and electronic transactions is to prohibit large cash withdrawals from banks while ease deposits into bank..start taxing large withdrawals in different brackets and gradually urban economy will shift to e-transactions..while banks will gain time and experience to build rural access.
India has a history of desperate failed solutions
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30040790
Mangus Ortus Novem
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India's Demonetization Project: Economic Destabilization of an Entire Country, "A Monumental Management Failure"
By Satya Sagar
It is early winter and a thick, grimy fog, black and white tinged with grey, hangs over Delhi much of the day. Morning visibility is bad, clears up a bit with a dull sun in the afternoon, before darkness descends again on the city.
A month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation policy, the gloomy weather in the national capital describes quite well the mood of the people here. Sullen but not angry, worried but not yet panicked, uneasy about the future but focused for the present on solving daily problems.
And yet somewhere deep down there is a growing feeling that we are witnessing the twilight of the Indian Republic – at least as we have known it for over six decades- a sovereign, federal, democratic nation, which with all its flaws, stumbles along intact. Few fully understand the real implications of 86% of the Indian currency disappearing overnight but there is foreboding it is a sign of many more drastic events to come.
If something as fundamental as money in a system can be so casually overturned what guarantee is there that you or your family will be safe tomorrow? Why should any of India’s various regions and states take orders from Delhi and its upstart Sultan of Sophistry anymore?
With every passing day though the disaster wrought on the economy and lives of ordinary citizens by demonetisation is becoming starkly apparent. Industries, trade, farming operations and daily consumption of essential goods are collapsing due to the lack of sufficient cash to carry out the simplest of transactions.
The queues at the banks are only getting longer and more frustrating with a surge in violent incidents as the initial support for the government’s self-proclaimed ‘war on black money’ wears thin. After all it is not the rich and powerful who are lining up day after day to exchange their old notes or try and withdraw a paltry 2000 Rupees from the few ATMs that work here and there.
In the meanwhile, the elderly and weak die in the wait like only they can, tired and breathless at the heartlessness of it all. How much more suffering is in store and how many needless lives lost to this manmade disaster – nobody really knows.
There is very little talk now from the government of any windfall gains to state revenues due to demonetisation, as almost all the ‘black cash’ around finds its way back into the banking system. There are zero measures to tackle the far larger problem of ‘black wealth’, in the form of gold, property, foreign accounts revealing the fundamentally dubious nature of this ‘war on corruption’.
A desperate regime aids this conversion with marginally stiffer penalties on unaccounted money coming into the banks,making the current crusade just a continuation of previous voluntary disclosure schemes for tax evaders. Calculations made by respectable research institutions show the costs to the Indian economy of demonetisation will far exceed any benefits it brings.
The rhetoric has instead already turned to the cuckoo world of a ‘cashless economy’, where everyone will live happily tied to a digital grid, run by the government hand in glove with banks, payment gateways, e-commerce companies and other peddlers of seductive software. All you need is a secure identity, the Aadhar card, the number imprinted on which will open or close doors depending on your credit rating. (If Aadhaar cards get fabricated on a large scale- as they are perhaps already- the powers that be will insist on a special stamp with indelible ink on your forehead to certify you are allowed to exist on this planet!)
It would all be very laughable if not for the cruel implications in a country where a majority still struggle to eat, cannot read or write and survive on a daily basis without power or water. It is only a generation ago that the poor learnt to negotiate cash – itself a complicated concept- and here they are being told to abruptly go digital. It is as if the Earth opened up one morning and swallowed them wholesale.
Along with the poor the real target of demonetisation are thousands of small and medium businesses which thrive only on cash transactions and underpin Indian democracy itself through both their sheer diversity and ability to earn and live independent of state support. Once they are decimated it will be that much easier to establish total control over the Indian economy by a handful of large corporate monopolies, which will also facilitate political dictatorship.
Sure, informal enterprises avoid giving tax but then what exactly will the Indian state give them in return if they become compliant – good schools, infrastructure, quality health care, pensions? Why should anyone pay tax to a government that seems to use these revenues to fatten the bank accounts of politicians, bureaucrats and crony capitalists?
The educated, urbanclasses are the only ones cheering Modi on right now as they see in the digital economy a consolidation of their traditional power – after all feudalism was also a ‘cashless’ system – not even a signature was required to get things done. A mere wave of the hand was enough to get orders or even orderlies executed in Ram Rajya. ‘E-Brahmanism’ would be indeed be a more appropriate way to describe a society without any physical cash!
Is it really possible to impose such a ‘Uniform Commercial Code’ on such a vast and heterogenous economy like India without sparking a revolt? Isn’t the Modi regime and the cabal of corporates playing with fire by pushing this ‘Big Bang’ reform?
When former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described demonetisation as a ‘monumental management failure’ he was essentially warning Modi not to bite more than he can chew. He should know, having been the architect of the original ‘Big Bang’ of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation over two decades ago. It was the tectonic forces he unleased on the Indian economy and society that gave impetus to Hindutva, helped the BJP rise to power and the phenomenon of Narendra Modi himself – all of which swallowed up the Congress party itself.
Of course there will be blowback and long after India recovers from the dire consequences of Narendra Modi’s monetary adventure, future historians will actually wonder what led a ruler, at the peak of his power, to attempt harakiri in this manner? For, it is not difficult really to see what has happened – the man is falling in front of our eyes on his own sword of hubris – the brash weapon that has humbled many a self-styled emperor before him.
Trying to understand the motives many have dubbed Narendra Modi a new Mohammad bin Tughlaq, the 14th Century ruler of Delhi, whose kingdom collapsed due to foolish experiments with new and poorly minted currency. There is some truth to this of course, as grandiose visions that lack of attention to detail and hasty schemes marred by low quality of implementation have indeed been his hallmark so far.
His harsher critics have compared Modi to the notorious Mir Jafar, who due to greed and ambition shook hands with the wily East India Company only to lose both arm and country.
Modi, an ordinary pracharak who rose to became Prime Minister, a chaiwallah who rubs shoulders with corporate bigwigs, does represent Mir Jafar’s burning quest for power at any cost.
The collective herding of 1.2 billion people into a ‘cashless economy’ is also nothing less than the return of Company Raj with loss of control over lives and livelihood for the Indian people. Mastercard, Visa, Facebook, Google, Paytm are the new Robert Clives of our times, manipulating intrigues in the Nawab’s palace to take over control.
There is even a Jagat Seth around, Mir Jafar’s financier, in the form of none other than Mukesh Ambani, whose business interests are poised to benefit most from the nature and timing of the demonetisation policy. Launching ‘Jio Money’, a payment gateway venture, in the first week of December, Ambani praised demonetisation in the same vein as a weapons dealer extolling the merits of war.
Coming back to Modi and the parallels with Tughlaq and Mir Jafar, they do indicate the way he thinks and behaves but do not fully capture what he is all about. In order to really get a more accurate picture of the man, there are two other essential ingredients that need to be added. One is the persona of a small town hustler of whom our Dear Leader has more than a heavy dose of and which is what lends him colour and explains his widespread popularity.
The dandy man in dark glasses, dressed in a white suit with flower sticking out his pocket, ambushing foreign Heads of State for a hug or posing like a tourist for selfies around ancient monuments – that is what endears him to the masses. All embellished by the legend that he is someone from humble origins who has made it big – something every poor man and woman admires and dreams of.
The other component of his character and one that makes him immensely dangerous though, is that ofamegalomaniac with the mind of a shrewd criminal. Nothing less that a wannabe Godfather. Someone, who is willing to do or say anything to get his way. With no loyalty to anyone except himself and his immediate benefactors – in the current case the corporate backers who financed his climb to power.
This makes him frightening to even those who helped him get where he has reached today – a man untethered to any principle, person or even the political party he leads. Remember Haren Pandya? The only consultation Modi seems to have done before embarking on the drastic experiment of ‘notebandi’ was perhaps in front of a mirror with himself – for it turns out none of the senior leaders of the BJP or even the RSS had a clue as to what he was upto- though all of them are lining up to praise his ‘brilliant’ policy out of fear today.
The reason why Modi is able to ride roughshod over his own party stalwarts is because he has cultivated a financial and popular support outside the traditional base of the organisation. If small and medium traders disappear with the digital economy, so be it – the future belongs to big corporations anyway. If the extreme Hindu right is upset with him how does it really matter when hecan win elections with the support of corporate financed propaganda?
Nothing else – but this understanding of Modi as a mix of Tughlaq, Mir Jafar, petty hustler and gangster –explains the indifference to consequences with which the entire demonetisation exercise was thought up and implemented. Nothing else explains also the arrogance that Modi continues to display about his own abilities as a ‘visionary’ and the complete lack of remorse for the immense hardships he has subjected the Indian population to.
What we have got from the Prime Minister so far in response to criticism or complaint is an anecdote about a beggar somewhere with a swipe card machine. Is this supposed to be the new aspirational model for the country – jobless citizens asking for doles in digital currency?
And of course, that casual ‘Robin Hood’ statement too, urging poorer citizens with Jan Dhan accounts not to return any of the unaccounted cash deposited in their names by those trying to convert their black money into white.
Wow! Did he really mean that? If he did, then good for him! I am just waiting for the day the masses figure out that all ‘white money’ in this country is only so because successive regimes have helped ‘whitewash’ it through convenient laws. When that finally happens – taking cue from Modi’s statement about redistributing wealth – there will not be a single Ambani or Adani shop left anywhere in the country!
It is clear, that even by the gross standards of the Indian elite’s historical disdain for the fate of the nation’s marginalized Narendra Modi’s entire discourse around the impact of his demonetisation policy is obscene beyond belief. In any other country, far less poor than India is, by now there would be class war raging– a French Revolution scenario complete with guillotines and heads rolling on the boulevard around India Gate.
That’s an exaggeration of course, but at least there would be mass protests around the nation calling for resignation of the Modi regime, the sacking of the RBI Governor, for restoration of the old Rs.500 notes and other measures that can relieve the immediate misery caused by demonetisation. Instead, so sorry is the state of our Opposition parties- except for the brave Mamata Banerjee- that instead of hitting the streets all they want is a statement from the Prime Minister in Parliament!
Given the reality that there is no organised opposition to the ruling dispensation outside, a more likely scenario is perhaps a palace coup against Modi from within. There is no doubt, while Modi is trying hide his wounds and bluster his way through the mess he has created, it is only a matter of time before, not just the Indian public, but also his own political party and fans turn on him viciously.
Leading this plot will be the Peshwas who run the RSS – unhappy with Modi getting too big for his boots and anxious to consolidate power before he fritters it away. In that case we may even see the rise of a new, more rigid and rabid version of Modi in the days ahead as his own partymen abandon him and move to the next level of their project to establish Hindu Pad Padshahi in the country.
The sad truth of all this is that if you thought Modi was bad, there are even worse characters lurking in the shadows, just waiting to take over.
Caveat:
Narendra Modi is only incidental to the snaring of the Indian Republic by the powerful forces of global finance. He happens to be the right man at the right moment to do their bidding. There is no doubt any future dispensation will come under similar pressure from outside to handover the keys or encrypted passwords to the kingdom’s treasury.
It will take much more than bogus ‘Hindu Nationalism’ of the RSS Peshwas to resist the temptation to sell Indian sovereignty and independence for a few shining sovereigns more. Maybe it is time for those interested in saving the Indian Republic to revisit 1857 for clues as to what needs to done next. No, I am not comparing Mamata Banerjee to the Rani of Jhansi or Kejriwal to Tatya Tope!
By Satya Sagar
It is early winter and a thick, grimy fog, black and white tinged with grey, hangs over Delhi much of the day. Morning visibility is bad, clears up a bit with a dull sun in the afternoon, before darkness descends again on the city.
A month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation policy, the gloomy weather in the national capital describes quite well the mood of the people here. Sullen but not angry, worried but not yet panicked, uneasy about the future but focused for the present on solving daily problems.
And yet somewhere deep down there is a growing feeling that we are witnessing the twilight of the Indian Republic – at least as we have known it for over six decades- a sovereign, federal, democratic nation, which with all its flaws, stumbles along intact. Few fully understand the real implications of 86% of the Indian currency disappearing overnight but there is foreboding it is a sign of many more drastic events to come.
If something as fundamental as money in a system can be so casually overturned what guarantee is there that you or your family will be safe tomorrow? Why should any of India’s various regions and states take orders from Delhi and its upstart Sultan of Sophistry anymore?
With every passing day though the disaster wrought on the economy and lives of ordinary citizens by demonetisation is becoming starkly apparent. Industries, trade, farming operations and daily consumption of essential goods are collapsing due to the lack of sufficient cash to carry out the simplest of transactions.
The queues at the banks are only getting longer and more frustrating with a surge in violent incidents as the initial support for the government’s self-proclaimed ‘war on black money’ wears thin. After all it is not the rich and powerful who are lining up day after day to exchange their old notes or try and withdraw a paltry 2000 Rupees from the few ATMs that work here and there.
In the meanwhile, the elderly and weak die in the wait like only they can, tired and breathless at the heartlessness of it all. How much more suffering is in store and how many needless lives lost to this manmade disaster – nobody really knows.
There is very little talk now from the government of any windfall gains to state revenues due to demonetisation, as almost all the ‘black cash’ around finds its way back into the banking system. There are zero measures to tackle the far larger problem of ‘black wealth’, in the form of gold, property, foreign accounts revealing the fundamentally dubious nature of this ‘war on corruption’.
A desperate regime aids this conversion with marginally stiffer penalties on unaccounted money coming into the banks,making the current crusade just a continuation of previous voluntary disclosure schemes for tax evaders. Calculations made by respectable research institutions show the costs to the Indian economy of demonetisation will far exceed any benefits it brings.
The rhetoric has instead already turned to the cuckoo world of a ‘cashless economy’, where everyone will live happily tied to a digital grid, run by the government hand in glove with banks, payment gateways, e-commerce companies and other peddlers of seductive software. All you need is a secure identity, the Aadhar card, the number imprinted on which will open or close doors depending on your credit rating. (If Aadhaar cards get fabricated on a large scale- as they are perhaps already- the powers that be will insist on a special stamp with indelible ink on your forehead to certify you are allowed to exist on this planet!)
It would all be very laughable if not for the cruel implications in a country where a majority still struggle to eat, cannot read or write and survive on a daily basis without power or water. It is only a generation ago that the poor learnt to negotiate cash – itself a complicated concept- and here they are being told to abruptly go digital. It is as if the Earth opened up one morning and swallowed them wholesale.
Along with the poor the real target of demonetisation are thousands of small and medium businesses which thrive only on cash transactions and underpin Indian democracy itself through both their sheer diversity and ability to earn and live independent of state support. Once they are decimated it will be that much easier to establish total control over the Indian economy by a handful of large corporate monopolies, which will also facilitate political dictatorship.
Sure, informal enterprises avoid giving tax but then what exactly will the Indian state give them in return if they become compliant – good schools, infrastructure, quality health care, pensions? Why should anyone pay tax to a government that seems to use these revenues to fatten the bank accounts of politicians, bureaucrats and crony capitalists?
The educated, urbanclasses are the only ones cheering Modi on right now as they see in the digital economy a consolidation of their traditional power – after all feudalism was also a ‘cashless’ system – not even a signature was required to get things done. A mere wave of the hand was enough to get orders or even orderlies executed in Ram Rajya. ‘E-Brahmanism’ would be indeed be a more appropriate way to describe a society without any physical cash!
Is it really possible to impose such a ‘Uniform Commercial Code’ on such a vast and heterogenous economy like India without sparking a revolt? Isn’t the Modi regime and the cabal of corporates playing with fire by pushing this ‘Big Bang’ reform?
When former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described demonetisation as a ‘monumental management failure’ he was essentially warning Modi not to bite more than he can chew. He should know, having been the architect of the original ‘Big Bang’ of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation over two decades ago. It was the tectonic forces he unleased on the Indian economy and society that gave impetus to Hindutva, helped the BJP rise to power and the phenomenon of Narendra Modi himself – all of which swallowed up the Congress party itself.
Of course there will be blowback and long after India recovers from the dire consequences of Narendra Modi’s monetary adventure, future historians will actually wonder what led a ruler, at the peak of his power, to attempt harakiri in this manner? For, it is not difficult really to see what has happened – the man is falling in front of our eyes on his own sword of hubris – the brash weapon that has humbled many a self-styled emperor before him.
Trying to understand the motives many have dubbed Narendra Modi a new Mohammad bin Tughlaq, the 14th Century ruler of Delhi, whose kingdom collapsed due to foolish experiments with new and poorly minted currency. There is some truth to this of course, as grandiose visions that lack of attention to detail and hasty schemes marred by low quality of implementation have indeed been his hallmark so far.
His harsher critics have compared Modi to the notorious Mir Jafar, who due to greed and ambition shook hands with the wily East India Company only to lose both arm and country.
Modi, an ordinary pracharak who rose to became Prime Minister, a chaiwallah who rubs shoulders with corporate bigwigs, does represent Mir Jafar’s burning quest for power at any cost.
The collective herding of 1.2 billion people into a ‘cashless economy’ is also nothing less than the return of Company Raj with loss of control over lives and livelihood for the Indian people. Mastercard, Visa, Facebook, Google, Paytm are the new Robert Clives of our times, manipulating intrigues in the Nawab’s palace to take over control.
There is even a Jagat Seth around, Mir Jafar’s financier, in the form of none other than Mukesh Ambani, whose business interests are poised to benefit most from the nature and timing of the demonetisation policy. Launching ‘Jio Money’, a payment gateway venture, in the first week of December, Ambani praised demonetisation in the same vein as a weapons dealer extolling the merits of war.
Coming back to Modi and the parallels with Tughlaq and Mir Jafar, they do indicate the way he thinks and behaves but do not fully capture what he is all about. In order to really get a more accurate picture of the man, there are two other essential ingredients that need to be added. One is the persona of a small town hustler of whom our Dear Leader has more than a heavy dose of and which is what lends him colour and explains his widespread popularity.
The dandy man in dark glasses, dressed in a white suit with flower sticking out his pocket, ambushing foreign Heads of State for a hug or posing like a tourist for selfies around ancient monuments – that is what endears him to the masses. All embellished by the legend that he is someone from humble origins who has made it big – something every poor man and woman admires and dreams of.
The other component of his character and one that makes him immensely dangerous though, is that ofamegalomaniac with the mind of a shrewd criminal. Nothing less that a wannabe Godfather. Someone, who is willing to do or say anything to get his way. With no loyalty to anyone except himself and his immediate benefactors – in the current case the corporate backers who financed his climb to power.
This makes him frightening to even those who helped him get where he has reached today – a man untethered to any principle, person or even the political party he leads. Remember Haren Pandya? The only consultation Modi seems to have done before embarking on the drastic experiment of ‘notebandi’ was perhaps in front of a mirror with himself – for it turns out none of the senior leaders of the BJP or even the RSS had a clue as to what he was upto- though all of them are lining up to praise his ‘brilliant’ policy out of fear today.
The reason why Modi is able to ride roughshod over his own party stalwarts is because he has cultivated a financial and popular support outside the traditional base of the organisation. If small and medium traders disappear with the digital economy, so be it – the future belongs to big corporations anyway. If the extreme Hindu right is upset with him how does it really matter when hecan win elections with the support of corporate financed propaganda?
Nothing else – but this understanding of Modi as a mix of Tughlaq, Mir Jafar, petty hustler and gangster –explains the indifference to consequences with which the entire demonetisation exercise was thought up and implemented. Nothing else explains also the arrogance that Modi continues to display about his own abilities as a ‘visionary’ and the complete lack of remorse for the immense hardships he has subjected the Indian population to.
What we have got from the Prime Minister so far in response to criticism or complaint is an anecdote about a beggar somewhere with a swipe card machine. Is this supposed to be the new aspirational model for the country – jobless citizens asking for doles in digital currency?
And of course, that casual ‘Robin Hood’ statement too, urging poorer citizens with Jan Dhan accounts not to return any of the unaccounted cash deposited in their names by those trying to convert their black money into white.
Wow! Did he really mean that? If he did, then good for him! I am just waiting for the day the masses figure out that all ‘white money’ in this country is only so because successive regimes have helped ‘whitewash’ it through convenient laws. When that finally happens – taking cue from Modi’s statement about redistributing wealth – there will not be a single Ambani or Adani shop left anywhere in the country!
It is clear, that even by the gross standards of the Indian elite’s historical disdain for the fate of the nation’s marginalized Narendra Modi’s entire discourse around the impact of his demonetisation policy is obscene beyond belief. In any other country, far less poor than India is, by now there would be class war raging– a French Revolution scenario complete with guillotines and heads rolling on the boulevard around India Gate.
That’s an exaggeration of course, but at least there would be mass protests around the nation calling for resignation of the Modi regime, the sacking of the RBI Governor, for restoration of the old Rs.500 notes and other measures that can relieve the immediate misery caused by demonetisation. Instead, so sorry is the state of our Opposition parties- except for the brave Mamata Banerjee- that instead of hitting the streets all they want is a statement from the Prime Minister in Parliament!
Given the reality that there is no organised opposition to the ruling dispensation outside, a more likely scenario is perhaps a palace coup against Modi from within. There is no doubt, while Modi is trying hide his wounds and bluster his way through the mess he has created, it is only a matter of time before, not just the Indian public, but also his own political party and fans turn on him viciously.
Leading this plot will be the Peshwas who run the RSS – unhappy with Modi getting too big for his boots and anxious to consolidate power before he fritters it away. In that case we may even see the rise of a new, more rigid and rabid version of Modi in the days ahead as his own partymen abandon him and move to the next level of their project to establish Hindu Pad Padshahi in the country.
The sad truth of all this is that if you thought Modi was bad, there are even worse characters lurking in the shadows, just waiting to take over.
Caveat:
Narendra Modi is only incidental to the snaring of the Indian Republic by the powerful forces of global finance. He happens to be the right man at the right moment to do their bidding. There is no doubt any future dispensation will come under similar pressure from outside to handover the keys or encrypted passwords to the kingdom’s treasury.
It will take much more than bogus ‘Hindu Nationalism’ of the RSS Peshwas to resist the temptation to sell Indian sovereignty and independence for a few shining sovereigns more. Maybe it is time for those interested in saving the Indian Republic to revisit 1857 for clues as to what needs to done next. No, I am not comparing Mamata Banerjee to the Rani of Jhansi or Kejriwal to Tatya Tope!
SBUS-CXK
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Where is the original link?India's Demonetization Project: Economic Destabilization of an Entire Country, "A Monumental Management Failure"
By Satya Sagar
It is early winter and a thick, grimy fog, black and white tinged with grey, hangs over Delhi much of the day. Morning visibility is bad, clears up a bit with a dull sun in the afternoon, before darkness descends again on the city.
A month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his demonetisation policy, the gloomy weather in the national capital describes quite well the mood of the people here. Sullen but not angry, worried but not yet panicked, uneasy about the future but focused for the present on solving daily problems.
And yet somewhere deep down there is a growing feeling that we are witnessing the twilight of the Indian Republic – at least as we have known it for over six decades- a sovereign, federal, democratic nation, which with all its flaws, stumbles along intact. Few fully understand the real implications of 86% of the Indian currency disappearing overnight but there is foreboding it is a sign of many more drastic events to come.
If something as fundamental as money in a system can be so casually overturned what guarantee is there that you or your family will be safe tomorrow? Why should any of India’s various regions and states take orders from Delhi and its upstart Sultan of Sophistry anymore?
With every passing day though the disaster wrought on the economy and lives of ordinary citizens by demonetisation is becoming starkly apparent. Industries, trade, farming operations and daily consumption of essential goods are collapsing due to the lack of sufficient cash to carry out the simplest of transactions.
The queues at the banks are only getting longer and more frustrating with a surge in violent incidents as the initial support for the government’s self-proclaimed ‘war on black money’ wears thin. After all it is not the rich and powerful who are lining up day after day to exchange their old notes or try and withdraw a paltry 2000 Rupees from the few ATMs that work here and there.
In the meanwhile, the elderly and weak die in the wait like only they can, tired and breathless at the heartlessness of it all. How much more suffering is in store and how many needless lives lost to this manmade disaster – nobody really knows.
There is very little talk now from the government of any windfall gains to state revenues due to demonetisation, as almost all the ‘black cash’ around finds its way back into the banking system. There are zero measures to tackle the far larger problem of ‘black wealth’, in the form of gold, property, foreign accounts revealing the fundamentally dubious nature of this ‘war on corruption’.
A desperate regime aids this conversion with marginally stiffer penalties on unaccounted money coming into the banks,making the current crusade just a continuation of previous voluntary disclosure schemes for tax evaders. Calculations made by respectable research institutions show the costs to the Indian economy of demonetisation will far exceed any benefits it brings.
The rhetoric has instead already turned to the cuckoo world of a ‘cashless economy’, where everyone will live happily tied to a digital grid, run by the government hand in glove with banks, payment gateways, e-commerce companies and other peddlers of seductive software. All you need is a secure identity, the Aadhar card, the number imprinted on which will open or close doors depending on your credit rating. (If Aadhaar cards get fabricated on a large scale- as they are perhaps already- the powers that be will insist on a special stamp with indelible ink on your forehead to certify you are allowed to exist on this planet!)
It would all be very laughable if not for the cruel implications in a country where a majority still struggle to eat, cannot read or write and survive on a daily basis without power or water. It is only a generation ago that the poor learnt to negotiate cash – itself a complicated concept- and here they are being told to abruptly go digital. It is as if the Earth opened up one morning and swallowed them wholesale.
Along with the poor the real target of demonetisation are thousands of small and medium businesses which thrive only on cash transactions and underpin Indian democracy itself through both their sheer diversity and ability to earn and live independent of state support. Once they are decimated it will be that much easier to establish total control over the Indian economy by a handful of large corporate monopolies, which will also facilitate political dictatorship.
Sure, informal enterprises avoid giving tax but then what exactly will the Indian state give them in return if they become compliant – good schools, infrastructure, quality health care, pensions? Why should anyone pay tax to a government that seems to use these revenues to fatten the bank accounts of politicians, bureaucrats and crony capitalists?
The educated, urbanclasses are the only ones cheering Modi on right now as they see in the digital economy a consolidation of their traditional power – after all feudalism was also a ‘cashless’ system – not even a signature was required to get things done. A mere wave of the hand was enough to get orders or even orderlies executed in Ram Rajya. ‘E-Brahmanism’ would be indeed be a more appropriate way to describe a society without any physical cash!
Is it really possible to impose such a ‘Uniform Commercial Code’ on such a vast and heterogenous economy like India without sparking a revolt? Isn’t the Modi regime and the cabal of corporates playing with fire by pushing this ‘Big Bang’ reform?
When former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described demonetisation as a ‘monumental management failure’ he was essentially warning Modi not to bite more than he can chew. He should know, having been the architect of the original ‘Big Bang’ of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation over two decades ago. It was the tectonic forces he unleased on the Indian economy and society that gave impetus to Hindutva, helped the BJP rise to power and the phenomenon of Narendra Modi himself – all of which swallowed up the Congress party itself.
Of course there will be blowback and long after India recovers from the dire consequences of Narendra Modi’s monetary adventure, future historians will actually wonder what led a ruler, at the peak of his power, to attempt harakiri in this manner? For, it is not difficult really to see what has happened – the man is falling in front of our eyes on his own sword of hubris – the brash weapon that has humbled many a self-styled emperor before him.
Trying to understand the motives many have dubbed Narendra Modi a new Mohammad bin Tughlaq, the 14th Century ruler of Delhi, whose kingdom collapsed due to foolish experiments with new and poorly minted currency. There is some truth to this of course, as grandiose visions that lack of attention to detail and hasty schemes marred by low quality of implementation have indeed been his hallmark so far.
His harsher critics have compared Modi to the notorious Mir Jafar, who due to greed and ambition shook hands with the wily East India Company only to lose both arm and country.
Modi, an ordinary pracharak who rose to became Prime Minister, a chaiwallah who rubs shoulders with corporate bigwigs, does represent Mir Jafar’s burning quest for power at any cost.
The collective herding of 1.2 billion people into a ‘cashless economy’ is also nothing less than the return of Company Raj with loss of control over lives and livelihood for the Indian people. Mastercard, Visa, Facebook, Google, Paytm are the new Robert Clives of our times, manipulating intrigues in the Nawab’s palace to take over control.
There is even a Jagat Seth around, Mir Jafar’s financier, in the form of none other than Mukesh Ambani, whose business interests are poised to benefit most from the nature and timing of the demonetisation policy. Launching ‘Jio Money’, a payment gateway venture, in the first week of December, Ambani praised demonetisation in the same vein as a weapons dealer extolling the merits of war.
Coming back to Modi and the parallels with Tughlaq and Mir Jafar, they do indicate the way he thinks and behaves but do not fully capture what he is all about. In order to really get a more accurate picture of the man, there are two other essential ingredients that need to be added. One is the persona of a small town hustler of whom our Dear Leader has more than a heavy dose of and which is what lends him colour and explains his widespread popularity.
The dandy man in dark glasses, dressed in a white suit with flower sticking out his pocket, ambushing foreign Heads of State for a hug or posing like a tourist for selfies around ancient monuments – that is what endears him to the masses. All embellished by the legend that he is someone from humble origins who has made it big – something every poor man and woman admires and dreams of.
The other component of his character and one that makes him immensely dangerous though, is that ofamegalomaniac with the mind of a shrewd criminal. Nothing less that a wannabe Godfather. Someone, who is willing to do or say anything to get his way. With no loyalty to anyone except himself and his immediate benefactors – in the current case the corporate backers who financed his climb to power.
This makes him frightening to even those who helped him get where he has reached today – a man untethered to any principle, person or even the political party he leads. Remember Haren Pandya? The only consultation Modi seems to have done before embarking on the drastic experiment of ‘notebandi’ was perhaps in front of a mirror with himself – for it turns out none of the senior leaders of the BJP or even the RSS had a clue as to what he was upto- though all of them are lining up to praise his ‘brilliant’ policy out of fear today.
The reason why Modi is able to ride roughshod over his own party stalwarts is because he has cultivated a financial and popular support outside the traditional base of the organisation. If small and medium traders disappear with the digital economy, so be it – the future belongs to big corporations anyway. If the extreme Hindu right is upset with him how does it really matter when hecan win elections with the support of corporate financed propaganda?
Nothing else – but this understanding of Modi as a mix of Tughlaq, Mir Jafar, petty hustler and gangster –explains the indifference to consequences with which the entire demonetisation exercise was thought up and implemented. Nothing else explains also the arrogance that Modi continues to display about his own abilities as a ‘visionary’ and the complete lack of remorse for the immense hardships he has subjected the Indian population to.
What we have got from the Prime Minister so far in response to criticism or complaint is an anecdote about a beggar somewhere with a swipe card machine. Is this supposed to be the new aspirational model for the country – jobless citizens asking for doles in digital currency?
And of course, that casual ‘Robin Hood’ statement too, urging poorer citizens with Jan Dhan accounts not to return any of the unaccounted cash deposited in their names by those trying to convert their black money into white.
Wow! Did he really mean that? If he did, then good for him! I am just waiting for the day the masses figure out that all ‘white money’ in this country is only so because successive regimes have helped ‘whitewash’ it through convenient laws. When that finally happens – taking cue from Modi’s statement about redistributing wealth – there will not be a single Ambani or Adani shop left anywhere in the country!
It is clear, that even by the gross standards of the Indian elite’s historical disdain for the fate of the nation’s marginalized Narendra Modi’s entire discourse around the impact of his demonetisation policy is obscene beyond belief. In any other country, far less poor than India is, by now there would be class war raging– a French Revolution scenario complete with guillotines and heads rolling on the boulevard around India Gate.
That’s an exaggeration of course, but at least there would be mass protests around the nation calling for resignation of the Modi regime, the sacking of the RBI Governor, for restoration of the old Rs.500 notes and other measures that can relieve the immediate misery caused by demonetisation. Instead, so sorry is the state of our Opposition parties- except for the brave Mamata Banerjee- that instead of hitting the streets all they want is a statement from the Prime Minister in Parliament!
Given the reality that there is no organised opposition to the ruling dispensation outside, a more likely scenario is perhaps a palace coup against Modi from within. There is no doubt, while Modi is trying hide his wounds and bluster his way through the mess he has created, it is only a matter of time before, not just the Indian public, but also his own political party and fans turn on him viciously.
Leading this plot will be the Peshwas who run the RSS – unhappy with Modi getting too big for his boots and anxious to consolidate power before he fritters it away. In that case we may even see the rise of a new, more rigid and rabid version of Modi in the days ahead as his own partymen abandon him and move to the next level of their project to establish Hindu Pad Padshahi in the country.
The sad truth of all this is that if you thought Modi was bad, there are even worse characters lurking in the shadows, just waiting to take over.
Caveat:
Narendra Modi is only incidental to the snaring of the Indian Republic by the powerful forces of global finance. He happens to be the right man at the right moment to do their bidding. There is no doubt any future dispensation will come under similar pressure from outside to handover the keys or encrypted passwords to the kingdom’s treasury.
It will take much more than bogus ‘Hindu Nationalism’ of the RSS Peshwas to resist the temptation to sell Indian sovereignty and independence for a few shining sovereigns more. Maybe it is time for those interested in saving the Indian Republic to revisit 1857 for clues as to what needs to done next. No, I am not comparing Mamata Banerjee to the Rani of Jhansi or Kejriwal to Tatya Tope!
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