Demonetisation: Questioning the relevance and legitimacy of note ban

The population had only 50 days to exchange their old notes

This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative between The Conversation and the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

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India’s demonetisation, the “notes ban”, began on November 8, 2016. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government announced that all high-denomination notes (500 and 1,000 rupees) in circulation would cease to be legal tender.

This was a shock. No hint of such a 1.3 billion-person-wide policy was given until the