term that spells as Schadenfreude-- a German term that can be translated as: one person’ s delight in another’ s misfortune. Thus, while, we the common people were troubled, there was much solace in their sheer agony and trouble the super-rich and the mega-rich would have to go through by this demonetization.
Post liberalization in the 90s, there has been a virtual boom in the Indian economy. Markets have expanded; MNCs have come, and so on. But the biggest boom that has happened is in the black economy, so the real estate prices has shot up to stratospheric levels, the stock markets are in a tizzy, gold is trading at a crazy peak. Yet, this expansion and growth has only enriched a select few, a very small group of people
This is not the fi rst time when high denomination currency notes were being demonetized in India. The fi rst such exercise was done in back in January 1946, where 1,000 & 10,000 banknotes were banned.
This was the fi rst exercise followed up by another demonetization by the Janata Government under Morarji Desai wherein banknotes of 1000, 5000 and 10000 that were in circulation were demonetized in January 1978.
And then India is not the only country to demonetize high denomination currency. Across the world governments have scrapped high denomination currency at different times to achieve certain objectives.
In 1969, US President Nixon discontinued $ 500 bill to combat money laundering by organized crime. As recent as in 2000, Canada got rid of its $ 1,000 bills, mean while Singapore dumped the $ 10,000 bills to rein in the hoarding and misuse. In 2010, UK had asked its banks to stop handling �500 notes after a government study showed that " they were used mainly by criminals ". In fact, there are calls in the UK to scrap the £ 50 note.
And then most recently, the European Central Bank has decided to stop printing Euro 500 bank notes, popularly known as‘ Bin Laden notes’, because of its association with money laundering and terror fi nancing. Do you know what the highest currency in the US is? It is the $ 100 bill.
-- businessmen, politician, and real estate barons. Power and money is concentrated within this select circle, which cohabit in camaraderie. And the gulf between this set of rich and powerful, and the average Indian has widened with each passing day. The result, multiple India exist concurrently; an India where the richest home in the world is built, and an India where the biggest slum of Asia exists too. For a far long time, the Indians from the latter have looked on enviously at the Indians from the former, desperately trying hard to make a transition. And it is these rich, super-rich and mega-rich that are responsible for the parallel black economy.
According to estimates, India’ s black economy could now be nearly three-quarters the size of its reported Gross Domestic Product, which will be around $ 1.6 trillion( of $ 2.1 trillion). While a big stash of this money is parked in accounts in Lichtenstein or Switzerland, a significant amount continues to exist in homes, offices and warehouses. This huge pile is used to get " work done ", be it fighting elections, getting contracts, doling advances, organizing parties, or just about anything else. Sadly, the common man is not immune to the impact from this black economy. Take the case of real estate, where people have to pay through their nose and sell their family heirlooms just to arrange the " black " component of their favored homes. It is because of this black money, that prices have inflated to crazy levels. No wonder, an average Indian is disgusted and depressed in such a scenario. Considering the fact that the club of these rich profiteers is a powerful one, there is little that anyone can do about it. I mean, we could just look on in amazement as an amnesty scheme by the government would net in 65,000 crores. The scale and size was much bigger, and no one seemed to have a solution for it. That was till, 8th November, 2016, when PM Modi made his first historic " address to the nation ".
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November 2016 35 www. smartgovernance. in