The commentariat may rightly deplore the appalling planning behind the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes that has caused a severe shortage of currency and subjected the bulk of India’s citizenry to varying degrees of hardship. Economists may predict slower economic growth as a result of compressed demand. But if any one group has completely misread the prime minister’s headline-grabbing ploy to ostensibly curb black money, it is the Opposition. Over the past week, their antics in Parliament and Monday’s nationwide protests against demonetisation have done them no favours. In displaying their angst in such unruly ways as storming the Reserve Bank of India offices, they have played right into Narendra Modi’s hands by betraying a disturbing disconnect with the electorate.
Even the barest dipstick survey of people standing in queues would have revealed that few are unhappy with this move — Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has ample opportunity to do so since he had hoped to gain some mileage by martyring himself in a cash-exchange line. Thanks to Mr Modi’s adroit management of the optics, the popular mood is broadly one of robust approval, so that people, long inured to hardships in daily life anyway, are willing to tolerate the inconveniences of demonetisation in the interests of what they perceive as the greater good of eliminating black money from the country. Mr Modi has also indefatigably employed his histrionic oratory to co-opt the common man into this fight against black money, an issue that has long been the scourge of Indian society, highlighted in popular cinema, associated with venal politicians and businessmen, and blamed for the poverty of many Indians. There is also the classic glee of the poor man at the discomfiture of the rich, an emotion that Mr Modi has tapped with consummate skill. Unlike other politicians who have paid lip service to the concept, Mr Modi has cashed in on the popular mood of the aspirational India and her heightened aversion to corruption after the shenanigans of the United Progressive Alliance. So demonetisation appears to tackle the problem courageously and decisively in popular perception.
Instead of providing coherent and mature solutions to a move that is replete with flaws – only former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh provided sanity in the midst of the uproar – the Opposition has fallen back on the cliched techniques of rhetoric, parliamentary disruptions and street protests. This fundamental misunderstanding of the popular mood has allowed Mr Modi to occupy the high ground as a politician of rare integrity — and implicitly make those who oppose demonetisation hoarders of black money. This has enabled him to ignore Parliament with impunity so far. Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) Nitish Kumar is the lone exception in displaying excellent political instincts by prudently declaring his support for the note ban. In contrast, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who made himself a standard bearer of anti-corruption just a few years ago, is now reduced to issuing the occasional ironic tweets that make him look silly. Like many Opposition politicians, he has failed to notice that Mr Modi has changed the terms of the debate and that they need to catch up or become irrelevant.
