A day before the first anniversary of demonetisation, former prime minister Manmohan Singh critiqued PM Modi’s note ban exercise terming it as the ‘black day’ for Indian economy and democracy. Singh, while addressing a gathering of small traders and businessmen in poll-bound Gujarat, said that demonetisation was a ‘disastrous policy’ that affected small businesses in India.
While speaking to IANS, he said,
Instead of providing relief to poor and marginalised farmers, traders and small and medium business… the government chose to inflict on them a badly designed and hastily implemented GST. This twin blow is a complete disaster for our economy. It has broken the back of small and medium enterprises of India.
Reiterating his views about the debacle of the economic reform, Singh described demonetisation ‘as an organised loot and legalised plunder’.
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Singh said though the government wanted to curb the menace of black money and tax invasion in the country, implementing demonetisation was clearly not a solution. He said,
I wonder who advised him to inflict such a reckless step on our nation and whether any considerable thought went into it. Black money and tax evasion are a menace that the country needs to tackle. Demonetisation was clearly not the solution.
While stressing on the fact that the demonetisation caused a harrowing experience for the poor people, farmers and small-scale traders, Singh said that what was more tragic than the incident was the fact that the Modi has learnt no lessons from this ‘monumental blunder’. He further added,
The fact that more than 99 percent of the (spiked) currency came back into the banking system has punctured the government’s claim. There are also widespread reports of the rich converting their black money into white while the poor have undergone immense suffering.
Launching a scathing attack on the BJP government, Singh said that the Modi government’s note ban exercise deeply affected the manufacturing and production sector in India while benefiting the Chinese firms.
He also said that people should be allowed to question the government about its policies. “This attitude of suspecting everyone to be a thief or anti-national, low-level rhetoric is damaging to democratic discourse,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress said that it would observe the first anniversary of demonetisation as ‘black day’ and stage a protest against the policy along with its allies.
