Hacker News Reader

Comment by sarang23592 | Hacker News Reader

I am from a small town in India(Jammu). It was not as bad for the people you are making it out to be. And what you are googling is a confirmation bias. You can search how demonetization was actually impactful and you will see the corresponding results.

View on HN

Okay, so, apart from the entire thing being dragged around by the international press, and Indian netizens, apart from countless stories of discomfort, there are afew things that stand out, which would paint the entire demonetization move in a bad light nonetheless. I'm no expert, and I'm recalling most of what I've read. Here goes:

1. Promises Promises: The PM unveiled the scheme abruptly (no woes here), promising people discomfort for a week... Then two weeks... Then a month... And then literally six months. You can see how things slipped out of controls as the initial "discomfort deadline" was a mere week.

2. Impeccable Planning: The new Rs 2000 note was not made to-size with the current ATM standards. As a result, the entire nation's ATM machines had to be modified. That is so big a blunder, it felt like I was reading The Onion when I read that one.

3. The Verdict: This one was the real eye opener. I was sympathetic to the entire humdrum, the months of inconvenience caused to everyone. (Full disclosure, I was not in India during the time. IMO, I can still have an opinion on the matter). But if it really did solve some parts of the black money problem, some good would have come out of it. In the annual RBI report, it was mentioned that ~99% of the currency flowing in the form of Rs 500, Rs 1000 notes was returned back to the banks. This implies that 99% of the currency is now legal, white money. That less than 1% of the currency was unaccounted for, and that's the money gained by the RBI since those notes are now rendered invalid. Source: http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/only-12-of-demoneti...

In this light then, I can't help but think of the entire process to be shaky.

Edit: The link was an AMP link. Sorry about that.

I think the government/RBI were fully aware of the period of discomfort. Without incurring additional debt, the RBI could print only so much new currency as equal to the amount of old currency returned. This was the main reason for the crash crunch for the new currency, the ATMs being dry. Somehow nobody communicated this to the people.

Now they may have underestimated the logistical issues to verify how much currency was returned.

A small town in Jammu doesn't represent the entire country you know. The impact of demonetization is incredibly bad on the poor. The GDP has come down. The govt acknowledges it in indirect ways like increasing the fiscal spending by 500 Billion rupees. It's insane that even educated people don't accept the truth and get carried away by emotional rhetoric. What are you all expecting exactly as economic slowdown? This is it!

>A small town in Jammu doesn't represent the entire country you know

I never said it does and I never said that demonetization was successful. I was just replying with first hand experience that impact of demonetization was not too bad for the people from what I saw and that the google will show what you want it to show.

>It's insane that even educated people don't accept the truth and get carried away by emotional rhetoric

What made you think that I got carried away by emotional rhetoric?

> What made you think that I got carried away by emotional rhetoric?

Refusing to accept or understand failure means that there is something else that makes you argue for it even when there are explicit results for everyone to see. Also it was not directed at you personally, rather at anyone who supports this decision still.

Again, the amount of impact it has caused is there for everyone to see. The numbers are out. Arguing anymore about this is like arguing with flat earth society. Let's not downplay the Poor's suffering.

> Again, the amount of impact it has caused is there for everyone to see.

That's your opinion. Two people have already mentioned that what they saw is inconsistent with what you claim everyone can see.

Do you have a personal anecdote to share that describes your experience? If yes, do so.

Do you have substantive evidence that your experience has been the experience of the majority? If yes, cite such statistics from trusted sources.

I think they can intentionally dismiss it. I'm not making up anything. So many verified sources have already published multiple articles. Just Google 'impact of demonetisation' which is obviously an unbiased query.

He is talking about his own experience. What is your own experience? Leave out what you read from MSM. From what I have seen and experienced, It isn't as bad as whats reported in the media. There were some initial hiccups but otherwise things are fine. A decrease in bootlegging and other evasive/illegal activities must've been included in this "slowdown".

The thing which is currently confusing and causing slowdown is GST implementation. Most businesses don't know what to do. This is to be expected. Feels like the govt wasn't fully ready with a streamlined implementation.

This is incredibly annoying. What do you mean it's all okay? For whom? You think the economy slowed down immediately after GST? No. GST's effect is yet to come in full flow. Dude the GDP has come to 6% in such a huge economy? You think that's a hiccup? Why aren't you all accepting numbers? If there is a small hiccup, then why is there a prolonged negative emotion in the country? If you ask how, see the recent attacks by the govt on a weak leader like Rahul Gandhi, this plan to electrify all villages. There was a plan to clean Ganga, clean the entire country as well. We all know how that went. If you don't accept failure you'll never grow.

Read what I wrote twice. Where did I say or mean its "all ok"?

Nobody implied it is okay. Read carefully before responding. This is Hacker News, not your Facebook timeline.

Describe your experience anecdotally or provide citations when you make broad claims about the country's experience, and speak substantially in both cases.

6% is a huge GDP growth tbh. Here in Europe everybody celebrates when Germany grows by 1.5% as it means EU economy is booming.

I understand that India is a developing country so growth should be faster but 6% is not that bad.

I have lost or cancelled a truly significant number of orders for capital goods as a concequence of GST alone.

This is on the backs of a ridiculous plan to demonitize cash, in a cash based economy.

We saw an immediately slow down when GST hit. Certain sectors were entirely dead - real estate - for a while.

It’s been nearly 6 months, and the pain in the informal sector is now whip lashing its way into the formal economy.

Indians are born children - you are not taking toys away to make them behave.

I understand the real estate part. Perhaps it (real estate) needed some regulation (though this is probably not the right way). It was getting out of hand and out of reach of most Indians. Tax evasion is a real problem we face.

Sorry for your loss pal. Lets hope things look up soon.

Real estate transactions in india are one of the largest areas where tax cheating and black money goes in to. It's not surprising the sector was hit. I'm not sure if it's a bad thing.

What you concluded by what you saw around you is a sort of confirmation bias too.It speaks about the wide socio-economic divide in India which to me is more acute than the US income inequality. People around you may not be affected because the grocer would provide them things on free credit or use digital payment means. Not so for the daily wage laborers, who would have to incur debt just to buy food. This was the biggest tragedy and irony of demonetization - the very people for whose sake this was done, suffered the most.It also provided the same people as armies via whom one can launder the cash hoardings.

Communities/businesses who had good credit networks survived/weren't affected, those who didn't suffered.

> What you concluded by what you saw around you is a sort of confirmation bias too

Fair Point.

>This was the biggest tragedy and irony of demonetization - the very people for whose sake this was done, suffered the most.It also provided the same people as armies via whom one can launder the cash hoardings

it wasn't done to help poor people. it was a ploy to win elections in UP and a successful one at that.

I am not googling it. I shared the search link for the commenter who asked about it. I am from a village in Bihar and family lives in nearby small towns. When the announcement for demonetisation was done I was asleep in a train to Hubli (from Bangalore) and I woke up to it with approx Rs 150 in my wallet (~3 dollars) and I backpacked across north and north east India for the next two months. I had left for the trip the previous day. I lived it as close as it could be in my capacity and mind it I was in a very privileged position. Really privileged and it was still very difficult. I could finally get some cash from a bank manager in Hubli who was a friend's relative and I went on.

But I agree on the bias part I should have just suggested to search "India + demonetisation" and only suggested to play with the search terms as in adding words like "effects", advantages, disadvantages etc.

> Jammu

And the villages and towns I am talking about (esp. in the hinterland and the North East) are something entirely else if I consider Jammu a small town (I say this relatively)

You are delusional if you think Jammu is a small town. It has a population of half a million, nearly twice as much as Shimla.

Small towns are towns like Barmer, Dausa, etc.

Remember: nearly 70% of India lives in rural areas. Your "small town" of half a million doesn't reflect the reality of these 900M people at all.

I am from Barnara area near Mansar lake in Jamuu which ahs very low population. I didn't mention because I thought nobody would know it. Anyways my experience obviously differs from yours.

I am from Pune and I still face a cash crunch in the ATMs and I had to stand for 4hrs in a line on a saturday to get cash, which arrived one hour later from the RBI from Mumbai.

You were lucky!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com