7 ms·

From the article, it seems like I didn't really understand the implications of Modi's actions to invalidate so much hard currency. Could someone familiar with

From the article, it seems like I didn't really understand the implications of Modi's actions to invalidate so much hard currency. Could someone familiar with the matter talk more about what the days/weeks following Modi's announcement looked like for the every day Indian?

agorabinary 8y ago
Yes, as a Westerner I hadn't even heard of this massive invalidation of 86% of India's cash currency. Pretty dramatic, certainly could have helped the massive crypto price run-up in late 2017. Also helps to demonstrate the value of a currency that can't be manipulated by state actors.
- atomical 8y ago
  The issue is that non-state actors were hiding money to avoid taxes. I wouldn't label prevention of theft as manipulation.
  - 1996 8y ago
    Invalidation is manipulation. The goodness of the reasons does not matter. Some people prefer a currency that can not be invalidated (shrunk) or debased (grown)
    - atomical 8y ago
      Wouldn't creation be manipulation too? As in the creation of the genesis block with Bitcoin?
      - chii 8y ago
        but everybody knows the approx. creation rate of bitcoins. Fiat money creation is not predictable to the same mathematical degree.
        atomical 8y ago
        No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, if he's alive, and whether he will use his bitcoin in the future. He could move the market if he chooses. At one point he was an oligarch, correct? He had money and political power as far as Bitcoin is concerned.
        chii 8y ago
        i dont believe the spending of Satoshi's (nor anybody else's coins) would cause any issue, since the market knows of the existence of these coins. It's that bitcoin is quite volatile due to its immaturity as a currency and commodity (it seems to act as both atm...) Unless satoshi has somehow hidden a large chunk of coins that has never been released somehow (which, would be weird, since as soon as they release it, it would invalidate the current chain!)
      - 1996 8y ago
        If you are arguing that the initial creation is a manipulation, I think you are posting in bad faith, because manipulation is generally understood as altering something that already exists - as in "genetic manipulations"
  - agorabinary 8y ago
    > prevention of theft Taxation is theft.
    - orf 8y ago
      Except that, you know, it's not. And I'm not sure that your comment adds anything to the discussion here, I would consider elaborating on why you think you should not have to pay taxes after being able to generate wealth using public infrastructure as a foundation.
    - throwaway8879 8y ago
      Next time you use a public utility/service please turn yourself in for theft also.
- gopalv 8y ago
  > Yes, as a Westerner I hadn't even heard of this massive invalidation of 86% of India's cash currency. Happened on 8th Nov 2016 - the western news cycle was laser focussed around a certain historic election. This wouldn't have hit front page on the 9th, for sure.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    I remember it being big news. YMMV depending on news sources you follow I suppose.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I guess different news outlets have different focuses, but it was big news on the BBC news website, which is where I get most of my international coverage. I don't read any American news websites, but I think from memory it wasn't really covered at all on the New Zealand news websites.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Could someone familiar with the matter talk more about what the days/weeks following Modi's announcement looked like for the every day Indian? People with money sold extra rupees to people below the maximum conversion at a small discount. Bank deposits bumped up, which was the point of the exercise—Indian state-owned banks are woefully uncompetitive and undercapitalised. The line about dirty rupees being extinguished was a farce, mostly because most large-scale illicit activity in India happens with hard currency and/or in Mauritius or Singapore.
- intended 8y ago
  I dont think this made a difference - If bank of Indore has given out bad loans under pressure to politically connected people, deposits to HDFC do not fix the liability imbalance. And then after all of this - we gave out massive loan waivers to farmers yet again. So back to square one I suppose?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > deposits to HDFC do not fix the liability imbalance They don't, but it gives the bank cash. Cash makes life easier.
denzil_correa 8y ago
There are two important facts for Modi's demonetization action. Fact 1 : 86% cash of the currency in circulation was made invalid Fact 2 : Unaccounted income in cash is approx. 3% Once you combine Fact 1 and 2, you'd know where this goes. Anyways, NPR has two podcasts on this [0,1]. [0] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=527803742 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=527803742 [1] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=528181998 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=528181998
- sjs7007 8y ago
  Wow I didn't know NPR covered Indian news as well. PS: I recognize your username from /r/india!
primitivesuave 8y ago
Indians with large amounts of hard currency are usually involved in some sort of tax evasive maneuver and sometimes involved in criminal activity. Corrupt politicians will use enormous amounts of currency to influence elections, so in this case the party in power (BJP, similar in ideology to US Republican party) used demonetization to disarm other political parties before the elections while appearing hard on corruption. There are numerous ways that wealthy individuals and businesses got around demonetization - for example, a bank manager could spread a large amount of "black money" across multiple accounts in the names of existing account holders, deposit a minimum deposit to avoid reporting requirements, and then withdraw the original amount later (minus a 20% commission) and return it in the form of new currency. The only people who were hurt were the average people who had to stand in long ATM lines or withstand reduced economic volatility. An established business may be able to withstand a month of severely reduced business but a street vendor, laborer, service worker, etc (a large part of the population) could not. * The political disarming is from my own speculation and the Washington Post wrote a great article on the economic impact: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/01/23/narendra-modi-is-pulling-india-back-to-the-1970s/?utm_term=.c0916ef3bce0 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/...
- balladeer 8y ago
  > The only people who were hurt were the average people This is exactly what my experience and observation have been too! Even the upper middle class folks had the work around ready and at times recommended to them by their bank managers. I work in Bangalore (South) but I am from UP (North) and one thing, in both the regions, I learned from traders and rich people regarding demonetisation that it was not more than a minor or major (in many cases when too much black money was involved) annoyance for them. PS. I am from the region that borders Nepal. A lot of money was moved to Nepal during that period as demonetisation apparently didn't apply to INR in circulation in Nepal (INR is quite common there).
godelmachine 8y ago
To add to the plight, ATM’s were always empty. It’s the governments responsibility to make sure they print the new currency and fill them in ATM’s as per anticipated demands. I had myself witnessed this. One of those days people were waiting outside a particular bank ATM, since the guard had said it may take 2 hours for cash to arrive. An ATM Van came and cash was unloaded into a bank ATM machine.We saw that bank officials were withdrawing the cash, and wouldn’t let us (the general public) withdraw cash. Obviously they were doing this to curry favors to some influential rich. Also, I missed my friend’s marriage because of this. Only yesterday did I get to know that one of the prominent builders ran out of business courtesy demonetization.
lozf 8y ago
Huge queues at ATMs and banks even months afterwards. As a Westerner with high value rupee notes getting change was a nightmare too.
abhis3798 8y ago
So the general belief is that "black money" is always stashed as hard cash. Specifically in higher denominations of 500 and 1000 ruppees. To uphold the poll promise of putting an end to black money, Modi came up with this plan to ban these denominations. It was utter chaos when this happened. People literally queued up at ATMs for hours and most ATMs would be out of cash. PayTM, now an household name in India for online wallet, turned out to be the biggest beneficiary from the whole fiasco. Black money however lives on.
dingo_bat 8y ago
I'm a developer in Bangalore. It was glorious. One thing to understand is that in India regular small time business owners are involved in a lot of tax evasion. They don't report their income fully and thus always have a huge stash of cash lying around. The biggest use for this is to buy real estate. Before demonetisation, if you want to buy a house or apartment it was usual to discuss the cash and registration amount. You would register the deal for ₹5 million and pay an extra 5 million in unaccounted cash. This meant that people who honestly report their income (usually salaried) are at a huge disadvantage. I don't have 5 million lying around in cash. I'll have to pay everything from my bank account, which will get tracked eventually to the seller I purchase my house from. Now, all of this bullshit is gone. The housing market is much more reasonable, there is no talk of cash payment. I love it. Even initially, I didn't have to stand in ATM lines, because I always use my cc. Where they don't accept cc, they accept Paytm.
- mandeepj 8y ago
  > Now, all of this bullshit is gone What? > I'll have to pay everything from my bank account, which will get tracked eventually to the seller I purchase my house from. Sorry dude. You are disconnected from reality. Workaround always exist. People still prefer to pay, as much as possible in cash, to save on that huge registration fees. This demonitization was just a smoke in people's eyes. Those big thugs are still scaming the banks and fleeing the country with billions of Rupees.
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    > You are disconnected from reality. I can only talk from my experience. Me and my father searched for an apartment about 6 months before the demonetisation. And I'm searching one for me now. There is a clear difference.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      What are the issues you are facing while buying an apartment? Keep note that any builder where software engineers buy, the big builder types, do not take cash money. In fact the payment schedule and mechanism is all in cheque or RTGS transactions. So that is barely a problem with or without any government action. Even in the worst case you still have to submit your PAN, so the government can easily audit your case even in case of cash transactions. If you are complaining about the bribe you have to pay during property registration. Make note you will be made to pay that even you do not do undervalue registration and pay the full amount. They charge you bribe even if all your papers are right. That sort of corruption can already be dealt with. But no one really tries hard enough because you have to burn down the whole system to do that. Every table in the registration office takes a cut to pass a paper to the next table. If your whole system is corrupt top down, you have little hope to fight these things apart from long term social reforms.
intended 8y ago
It was an unmitigated disaster on several economic aspects. Political it had superb optics. All in all, it was a political spectacle paid for by the exchequer. Here are the critical pieces of information needed - 1) The large majority of the Indian economy is "black" - i.e, the unorganized sector. 2) Cash is the main medium of trade, years after demonitization, we are back at similar levels of cash use, indicating no lasting impact on customer habits. 3) The reasons provided by the govt changed by the day, Initially it was sold as "stopping black money" or illegal accumulation of untaxed wealth. This was updated to "removing counterfeit currency", later "increasing digital transactions". 4) The govt claimed that this was a well planned out strategic move, and not some ad hoc pie in the sky idea they were working on. However, within a few days it showed clearly that the govt had not planned for the event - Amount of money demonitized >>> ability of the mint to print new notes, even with the several month lead it was supposed to have - if the mint was working non stop for that period. The new notes did not work with many ATM trays, and this caused further problems- not to mention the scale of the logistical problem in getting the new notes to every corner of the country. 5) Loopholes: Within a few days, if not hours - people were using mules to launder money. The govt said that you could deposit only X amount of money, after which you had to account for it and show where you got it from. The argument was that people holding untaxed or corrupt proceeds, would not be able to deposit them. however - almost all the money demonitized was re-deposited into the banking system. This means that all the untaxed money, somehow was legally deposited in legit bank accounts. PS) Indians HATE corruption, and the idea that someone got ahead of them by cheating. People happily accepted the sudden demonitization announcement because they believed that the rich and corrupt will suffer. This was why the PR was good. ----- For each of the stated reasons given by the government, it is easy to show with actual numbers, that the exercise failed to achieve its goals. Where a positive improvement can be shown, the gains are not commensurate to the losses incurred by the economy, and costs paid to undertake the exercise. Digital transactions have not increased significantly, for example - and will not until the underlying telecom and trade infrastructure improves. Most of the wealth was recovered, and very few people, if any have been caught as a result of this - especially since its common knowledge that most politicos sit on piles of cash. ---- However, it is very likely that the goal of the exercise was to harm other political parties who had cash based war chests. Since the people most harmed by this are in the unorganized sector, the results will not show in any GDP projection. The current dispensation is far more pro corporate than the previous govt, and so their chief patrons and metrics are not impacted, so it was at a relatively low political cost for the party. In short, it was an audacious political stunt, and carried out with verve. Its also hard to criticize it because of the amount of ire you attract online for being negative about actions of the current dispensation. SO please note, this is the take on Demonitization, and not on the BJP entire.
malhotra_chetan 8y ago
MENACE, MENACE is the only world that can be used to describe the post-demonetization days. A guy who people of the largest democracy in the world chose to be their leader, effed up their lives and pretty much sure many made billions out if it. It was pretty much a scam that was pulled under the umbrella of "It will bring back all the un-taxed currency under scrutiny", but was really just another day when financially lower and financially middle-class citizens got effed by the turds sitting in the govt. and the lobby they suck up to. People were crying and begging for their own money outside of banks. BAnk employees were working 18hrs 7 times a week. There were many meters long queues outside of every ATM, and trust me there are a hell lot of ATMs in India(clearly because of the population). If you ever want to pull off a con act of duping someone of their own hard earned money, people of Modi REGIME are the con-artists you have to meet with.
si1verbu11et 8y ago
IMO it was done to recapitalise banks which are getting drowned in NPAs. Not sure if it worked out or not in that sense. People also say it was done to win some state elections. Modi says it was for the war against corruption/black money and to improve the tax base.

agorabinary 8y ago

Yes, as a Westerner I hadn't even heard of this massive invalidation of 86% of India's cash currency. Pretty dramatic, certainly could have helped the massive crypto price run-up in late 2017. Also helps to demonstrate the value of a currency that can't be manipulated by state actors.

atomical 8y ago
The issue is that non-state actors were hiding money to avoid taxes. I wouldn't label prevention of theft as manipulation.
- 1996 8y ago
  Invalidation is manipulation. The goodness of the reasons does not matter. Some people prefer a currency that can not be invalidated (shrunk) or debased (grown)
  - atomical 8y ago
    Wouldn't creation be manipulation too? As in the creation of the genesis block with Bitcoin?
    - chii 8y ago
      but everybody knows the approx. creation rate of bitcoins. Fiat money creation is not predictable to the same mathematical degree.
      - atomical 8y ago
        No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, if he's alive, and whether he will use his bitcoin in the future. He could move the market if he chooses. At one point he was an oligarch, correct? He had money and political power as far as Bitcoin is concerned.
        chii 8y ago
        i dont believe the spending of Satoshi's (nor anybody else's coins) would cause any issue, since the market knows of the existence of these coins. It's that bitcoin is quite volatile due to its immaturity as a currency and commodity (it seems to act as both atm...) Unless satoshi has somehow hidden a large chunk of coins that has never been released somehow (which, would be weird, since as soon as they release it, it would invalidate the current chain!)
    - 1996 8y ago
      If you are arguing that the initial creation is a manipulation, I think you are posting in bad faith, because manipulation is generally understood as altering something that already exists - as in "genetic manipulations"
- agorabinary 8y ago
  > prevention of theft Taxation is theft.
  - orf 8y ago
    Except that, you know, it's not. And I'm not sure that your comment adds anything to the discussion here, I would consider elaborating on why you think you should not have to pay taxes after being able to generate wealth using public infrastructure as a foundation.
  - throwaway8879 8y ago
    Next time you use a public utility/service please turn yourself in for theft also.
gopalv 8y ago
> Yes, as a Westerner I hadn't even heard of this massive invalidation of 86% of India's cash currency. Happened on 8th Nov 2016 - the western news cycle was laser focussed around a certain historic election. This wouldn't have hit front page on the 9th, for sure.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  I remember it being big news. YMMV depending on news sources you follow I suppose.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I guess different news outlets have different focuses, but it was big news on the BBC news website, which is where I get most of my international coverage. I don't read any American news websites, but I think from memory it wasn't really covered at all on the New Zealand news websites.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Could someone familiar with the matter talk more about what the days/weeks following Modi's announcement looked like for the every day Indian? People with money sold extra rupees to people below the maximum conversion at a small discount. Bank deposits bumped up, which was the point of the exercise—Indian state-owned banks are woefully uncompetitive and undercapitalised. The line about dirty rupees being extinguished was a farce, mostly because most large-scale illicit activity in India happens with hard currency and/or in Mauritius or Singapore.

intended 8y ago
I dont think this made a difference - If bank of Indore has given out bad loans under pressure to politically connected people, deposits to HDFC do not fix the liability imbalance. And then after all of this - we gave out massive loan waivers to farmers yet again. So back to square one I suppose?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > deposits to HDFC do not fix the liability imbalance They don't, but it gives the bank cash. Cash makes life easier.

denzil_correa 8y ago

There are two important facts for Modi's demonetization action. Fact 1 : 86% cash of the currency in circulation was made invalid Fact 2 : Unaccounted income in cash is approx. 3% Once you combine Fact 1 and 2, you'd know where this goes. Anyways, NPR has two podcasts on this [0,1]. [0] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=527803742 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=527803742 [1] https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=528181998 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=528181998

sjs7007 8y ago
Wow I didn't know NPR covered Indian news as well. PS: I recognize your username from /r/india!

primitivesuave 8y ago

Indians with large amounts of hard currency are usually involved in some sort of tax evasive maneuver and sometimes involved in criminal activity. Corrupt politicians will use enormous amounts of currency to influence elections, so in this case the party in power (BJP, similar in ideology to US Republican party) used demonetization to disarm other political parties before the elections while appearing hard on corruption. There are numerous ways that wealthy individuals and businesses got around demonetization - for example, a bank manager could spread a large amount of "black money" across multiple accounts in the names of existing account holders, deposit a minimum deposit to avoid reporting requirements, and then withdraw the original amount later (minus a 20% commission) and return it in the form of new currency. The only people who were hurt were the average people who had to stand in long ATM lines or withstand reduced economic volatility. An established business may be able to withstand a month of severely reduced business but a street vendor, laborer, service worker, etc (a large part of the population) could not. * The political disarming is from my own speculation and the Washington Post wrote a great article on the economic impact: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/01/23/narendra-modi-is-pulling-india-back-to-the-1970s/?utm_term=.c0916ef3bce0 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/...

balladeer 8y ago
> The only people who were hurt were the average people This is exactly what my experience and observation have been too! Even the upper middle class folks had the work around ready and at times recommended to them by their bank managers. I work in Bangalore (South) but I am from UP (North) and one thing, in both the regions, I learned from traders and rich people regarding demonetisation that it was not more than a minor or major (in many cases when too much black money was involved) annoyance for them. PS. I am from the region that borders Nepal. A lot of money was moved to Nepal during that period as demonetisation apparently didn't apply to INR in circulation in Nepal (INR is quite common there).

godelmachine 8y ago

To add to the plight, ATM’s were always empty. It’s the governments responsibility to make sure they print the new currency and fill them in ATM’s as per anticipated demands. I had myself witnessed this. One of those days people were waiting outside a particular bank ATM, since the guard had said it may take 2 hours for cash to arrive. An ATM Van came and cash was unloaded into a bank ATM machine.We saw that bank officials were withdrawing the cash, and wouldn’t let us (the general public) withdraw cash. Obviously they were doing this to curry favors to some influential rich. Also, I missed my friend’s marriage because of this. Only yesterday did I get to know that one of the prominent builders ran out of business courtesy demonetization.

lozf 8y ago

Huge queues at ATMs and banks even months afterwards. As a Westerner with high value rupee notes getting change was a nightmare too.

abhis3798 8y ago

So the general belief is that "black money" is always stashed as hard cash. Specifically in higher denominations of 500 and 1000 ruppees. To uphold the poll promise of putting an end to black money, Modi came up with this plan to ban these denominations. It was utter chaos when this happened. People literally queued up at ATMs for hours and most ATMs would be out of cash. PayTM, now an household name in India for online wallet, turned out to be the biggest beneficiary from the whole fiasco. Black money however lives on.

dingo_bat 8y ago

I'm a developer in Bangalore. It was glorious. One thing to understand is that in India regular small time business owners are involved in a lot of tax evasion. They don't report their income fully and thus always have a huge stash of cash lying around. The biggest use for this is to buy real estate. Before demonetisation, if you want to buy a house or apartment it was usual to discuss the cash and registration amount. You would register the deal for ₹5 million and pay an extra 5 million in unaccounted cash. This meant that people who honestly report their income (usually salaried) are at a huge disadvantage. I don't have 5 million lying around in cash. I'll have to pay everything from my bank account, which will get tracked eventually to the seller I purchase my house from. Now, all of this bullshit is gone. The housing market is much more reasonable, there is no talk of cash payment. I love it. Even initially, I didn't have to stand in ATM lines, because I always use my cc. Where they don't accept cc, they accept Paytm.

mandeepj 8y ago
> Now, all of this bullshit is gone What? > I'll have to pay everything from my bank account, which will get tracked eventually to the seller I purchase my house from. Sorry dude. You are disconnected from reality. Workaround always exist. People still prefer to pay, as much as possible in cash, to save on that huge registration fees. This demonitization was just a smoke in people's eyes. Those big thugs are still scaming the banks and fleeing the country with billions of Rupees.
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  > You are disconnected from reality. I can only talk from my experience. Me and my father searched for an apartment about 6 months before the demonetisation. And I'm searching one for me now. There is a clear difference.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    What are the issues you are facing while buying an apartment? Keep note that any builder where software engineers buy, the big builder types, do not take cash money. In fact the payment schedule and mechanism is all in cheque or RTGS transactions. So that is barely a problem with or without any government action. Even in the worst case you still have to submit your PAN, so the government can easily audit your case even in case of cash transactions. If you are complaining about the bribe you have to pay during property registration. Make note you will be made to pay that even you do not do undervalue registration and pay the full amount. They charge you bribe even if all your papers are right. That sort of corruption can already be dealt with. But no one really tries hard enough because you have to burn down the whole system to do that. Every table in the registration office takes a cut to pass a paper to the next table. If your whole system is corrupt top down, you have little hope to fight these things apart from long term social reforms.

intended 8y ago

It was an unmitigated disaster on several economic aspects. Political it had superb optics. All in all, it was a political spectacle paid for by the exchequer. Here are the critical pieces of information needed - 1) The large majority of the Indian economy is "black" - i.e, the unorganized sector. 2) Cash is the main medium of trade, years after demonitization, we are back at similar levels of cash use, indicating no lasting impact on customer habits. 3) The reasons provided by the govt changed by the day, Initially it was sold as "stopping black money" or illegal accumulation of untaxed wealth. This was updated to "removing counterfeit currency", later "increasing digital transactions". 4) The govt claimed that this was a well planned out strategic move, and not some ad hoc pie in the sky idea they were working on. However, within a few days it showed clearly that the govt had not planned for the event - Amount of money demonitized >>> ability of the mint to print new notes, even with the several month lead it was supposed to have - if the mint was working non stop for that period. The new notes did not work with many ATM trays, and this caused further problems- not to mention the scale of the logistical problem in getting the new notes to every corner of the country. 5) Loopholes: Within a few days, if not hours - people were using mules to launder money. The govt said that you could deposit only X amount of money, after which you had to account for it and show where you got it from. The argument was that people holding untaxed or corrupt proceeds, would not be able to deposit them. however - almost all the money demonitized was re-deposited into the banking system. This means that all the untaxed money, somehow was legally deposited in legit bank accounts. PS) Indians HATE corruption, and the idea that someone got ahead of them by cheating. People happily accepted the sudden demonitization announcement because they believed that the rich and corrupt will suffer. This was why the PR was good. ----- For each of the stated reasons given by the government, it is easy to show with actual numbers, that the exercise failed to achieve its goals. Where a positive improvement can be shown, the gains are not commensurate to the losses incurred by the economy, and costs paid to undertake the exercise. Digital transactions have not increased significantly, for example - and will not until the underlying telecom and trade infrastructure improves. Most of the wealth was recovered, and very few people, if any have been caught as a result of this - especially since its common knowledge that most politicos sit on piles of cash. ---- However, it is very likely that the goal of the exercise was to harm other political parties who had cash based war chests. Since the people most harmed by this are in the unorganized sector, the results will not show in any GDP projection. The current dispensation is far more pro corporate than the previous govt, and so their chief patrons and metrics are not impacted, so it was at a relatively low political cost for the party. In short, it was an audacious political stunt, and carried out with verve. Its also hard to criticize it because of the amount of ire you attract online for being negative about actions of the current dispensation. SO please note, this is the take on Demonitization, and not on the BJP entire.

malhotra_chetan 8y ago

MENACE, MENACE is the only world that can be used to describe the post-demonetization days. A guy who people of the largest democracy in the world chose to be their leader, effed up their lives and pretty much sure many made billions out if it. It was pretty much a scam that was pulled under the umbrella of "It will bring back all the un-taxed currency under scrutiny", but was really just another day when financially lower and financially middle-class citizens got effed by the turds sitting in the govt. and the lobby they suck up to. People were crying and begging for their own money outside of banks. BAnk employees were working 18hrs 7 times a week. There were many meters long queues outside of every ATM, and trust me there are a hell lot of ATMs in India(clearly because of the population). If you ever want to pull off a con act of duping someone of their own hard earned money, people of Modi REGIME are the con-artists you have to meet with.

si1verbu11et 8y ago

IMO it was done to recapitalise banks which are getting drowned in NPAs. Not sure if it worked out or not in that sense. People also say it was done to win some state elections. Modi says it was for the war against corruption/black money and to improve the tax base.