The Constitution of India, cast India as a liberal, democratic republic, in keeping with the ideals of the members of the Constituent Assembly. India became a democratic nation with checks and balances imposed by the republic the essence of which is respect for diversity and freedom of expression. A government is selected on popular vote to govern and make decisions. Republics are democracies, but come with a set of limitations on the powers of government, important being inalienable rights, which cannot be taken away by majority vote.
It is in this spirit of democracy that one should view a recent blog of L K Advani, where he writes that one cannot regard those who disagree with the party in power politically, as “enemies”, but only as adversaries and that those who disagree politically are not “anti-national”. Great words of wisdom, but hardly followed.
Unconstitutional ideas often seem to have wide popular acceptance, including exclusion of citizens on the basis of language of the state or a preferential treatment on the basis of caste or religion or subversion of constitutional affirmative action or even misuse of Constitutional protection granted to various communities.
Freedom as enshrined under the fundamental rights does not give freewheeling powers to say anything and get away with it. It calls for maturity and an acceptance that there can be a counter view. Political parties have progressively construed that their view is the majoritarian view and have tried to push their agenda even if it is in the grey zone of acceptance. A sense of desperation and insecurity have crept into as a consequence. The heady power thus, has eroded moral and ethical values and given rise to moral and ethical corruption. Governments were shown the door for this intransigence in the past. It can happen in future as well.
What is worrying though is the complete disregard to values and the way new thinking is evolving. If your opponent is down and out, go for the kill seems to be the new norm. Extrapolate this and you will see the downside of democracy. Corruption by all means must be nipped in the bud. The way money is laundered, or the way it is parked, or the way it funds elections, or bribes the electorate or the way the goodies that it can buy find their way into a poor man’s home are all topics well researched and known well to all those in power. Why then raid, to unearth such wealth only before elections? It is doubly bad if it is seen that this mode is reserved only for the opponents. Surely, the raiding of money hideouts could happen during times of calm.
If a party in power chooses to announce a direct benefit transfer of a certain amount to a citizen’s account just before elections and also executes it, it is regarded as a service and concern for the abject poverty of its citizens. But if the same is paid in cash, it is treated as a bribe. A nation cannot function without cash in circulation. Does that make all cash unaccounted and hence ill gotten? If such cash finds its way to a poor man’s house, is it bribe and must be frowned upon? In the name of people’s policies are we institutionalising moral corruption?
Unaccounted money is a scourge of any Nation. Demonetisation had the potential to cleanse and revitalise economy. The 2016 November story had India’s GDP at $2,000 billion (Rs 125 lakh crore) with an estimated parallel economy of 23 percent, which makes it about Rs 28 lakh crore parked mostly in real estate, gold, and cash. Real estate accounts for more than 50% and the rest is equally divided between cash and gold. Around 68% of that cash was kept in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. A rough calculation shows that Rs 3 lakh crore or $45 billion could have flown into India’s white economy, which is equivalent to GDP of more than 100 countries. What actually happened? The Reserve Bank of India in its last annual report, said Rs 15.31 lakh crore out of the total Rs 15.41 lakh crore demonetised currency returned to the banking system. It further said, 99.3 per cent junked notes were deposited in banks, while 0.7 per cent notes worth Rs 10,720 crore couldn’t be traced.
Does that make our fight against corruption notional or is it playing to the gallery? It does beat logic that Rs 1000 currency notes made way for Rs. 2000 notes. Was this move to arrest corruption or make it easy? Incidentally, what would be the cash in circulation today? The RBI data of November 2018 shows, there is more currency in the Indian economy right now, than there was on the eve of the demonetisation announced two years ago, with currency in circulation growing at a rate of 22.2 per cent year on year, which is over four percentage points more than 2016’s growth rate of 17.7 per cent. Is this attributable to more cash being horded or more notes being printed? Will we also see the Rs. 2000 being withdrawn in time to come for every move has a threshold, subsequent to which it only contributes to negative returns.
Electoral bonds designed to be bearer instruments like Promissory Notes payable to the bearers, the political parties, on demand and free of interest admittedly may be better than cash deposits. But then, who checks where the money to buy electoral bonds is coming from? Icing on the cake, is both giver and the receiver remain incognito. Is it going to be my electoral bonds Vs yours in future for the political parties?
A subtle message seems to be spreading that all transactions digital are above board and all cash is foul. Research shows, there is an underlying nexus between corruption and digitalisation analysed by means of a longitudinal study of a large cross-section of people, including two composite proxies for digitalisation, one at a population level, and one at a government level, modelled through fixed effects. Digitalisation shows to be more impacting the mid-income ranged countries, rather than low or high income ranged countries. Institutionalising digital corruption can be far worse, proving the proverbial “functioning anarchy” coined by Kenneth Galbraith, the US ambassador to India and a renowned economist. Or is it “functioning digital anarchy”