Srinivas Kamat
Carrying on the euphoria after the surgical strike on Pak, Narendra Modi and his government turned their guns inward at the country and on November 8, 2016 launched the demonetisation surgical strike on the unsuspecting Indian population. The results of that are being felt to this day. If the Pak surgical strike as we are told resulted in some 22 deaths, the Demonetisation surgical strike killed some 109 directly and many others indirectly. The direct deaths were those who stood on the queues in front of banks and gave up their lives to exchange their own money that had been invalidated by an irresponsible government. The indirect deaths caused by Demonetisation were related to the fatalities that were caused of sick people who were unable to have the right currency to pay doctors and hospitals because of the non-availability and shortage of the proper currency and gave up their lives though they had the worthless old paper currency in their hands. There could be more cases of indirect deaths like this but it was found by the incumbent government that it was better to wipe these under the carpet.
The Pak surgical strike resulted in collateral damage as we are told and claimed by Pak of a few villagers in the area and damages to the Pak army and/or terrorist camps. While the Demonetisation surgical strike on the Indian population in terms of collateral damage resulted in massive job losses across the swathe of the small-scale and unorganised sector, huge amounts of perishable goods were wasted in the early days of Nov 2016 because there was no cash to pay for the goods and no alternate payment mechanisms set up. Many small businesses went under unable to figure out a way to do business without cash. The organised sector was also hit with a slump in demand which they continue to face even now.
Thus where a popularly elected government is expected to be caring and look after the welfare of its people, Narendra Modi and his government went the other way and tormented its people on the false premise that this was ‘beneficial’ for them. Not only that hardly any time had passed but obsessed with the idea of surgical strikes, this same government unleashed another ‘brahmastra’ on its people in the form of GST to add to the mess in people’s lives. But then like they say, that is another story!
