Now Narendra Modi Hoodwinks You with Demonetization Survey
As Modi and his ministers are not able to control the worsening situation, they are making random announcements as part of their damage-control exercise.
By Rakesh Raman
While millions of people across the country are suffering, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been telling lies about the objective and success of his demonetization scheme.
In a series of speeches during the past few days, Modi has been claiming that only a few opposition parties are against his move, while people of India are supporting him for removing old currency notes from the market.
These were all unsubstantiated claims and, in fact, Modi is lying. Ordinary people, who have been facing severe hardships as there is an acute shortage of currency in India, are cursing Modi.
[ Modi’s Monarchy: Banks in India Refuse to Pay People’s Money ]
Now, in order to further fool the people, Modi is trying to give some meaning to his false claims. Today, he has launched a survey consisting of 10 questions that are supposed to collect people’s views regarding his ban on currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000.
The survey asks people to express their views through the Narendra Modi App if demonetization can help curb black money, corruption, and terrorism.
As most people in India are uneducated, they do not understand that such a survey is meaningless because only Modi will know the number of respondents and their response.
As Modi is very comfortable in telling lies, in all likelihood he will inflate the number of respondents and say that majority of people supports his demonetization decision. People will never be able to know the truth.
But truth is that more than 70 people have already died as a result of demonetization. These figures were revealed Monday by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which demanded an obituary in Parliament for the deaths caused by currency chaos in the country.
[ Demonetization Deaths: Communist Party Demands Obituary in Parliament ]
The war-like situation is causing deaths of innocent people who keep standing in queues even in harsh weather with the hope to get their old currency exchanged from banks, which do not have cash for their customers.
In a totally crude manner, Modi had demonetized currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 on November 8, saying that the step has been taken to check corruption and stop the flow of black money. But he could never support his decision with logic.
Common people and opposition parties in India are up in arms against the Modi government because the decision to stop the circulation of currency is causing severe hardships to commoners.
As Modi and his ministers – most of them lack domain expertise – are not able to control the worsening situation, they are making random announcements as part of their damage-control exercise. Modi’s new survey also aims to control the damage. But actually it is just another hogwash. You can easily ignore it.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a government award-winning journalist and social scientist. You also can visit the REAL VOTER – Politics in India Information Center that he manages.
