As soon as PM Narendra Modi announced that currency notes in
the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 would be demonetised immediately,
people ran to the nearest ATMs and began withdrawing Rs 100 denomination notes.
And then… the ATMs ran out of money.
Today, as I was going about gauging the mood around town, I
stopped for tea at my usual kitli. After the usual pleasantries with my
usual chaiwallah, I took my cup of tea and sat down with my phone to check for
updates on the US election. Donald Trump had won. OK, no comments.
But then I saw something closer to home. Something I am
going to call the ‘short-term collateral damage of demonetisation of notes’.
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| Photo Credit: Joel George |
The chaiwallah was arguing with his stockist. Since this was
a small kitli at the corner of residential block, there wasn’t much
traffic here and there are lesser customers. Hence, cigarette sales also aren’t
that great. So the stockist gave the chaiwallah two boxes of cigarettes and
chaiwallah handed over an Rs 500 denomination note to pay for it.
However, the stockist refused to take it, saying that he
would not accept anything except Rs 100 notes. Now, the chaiwallah only
had Rs 500 notes since he got the news only this morning and by that time, all
the ATMs in the area were already out of cash and customers were unwilling to exchange his notes for him.
After a lot of haggling, the stockist came up with a
solution. He would give the chaiwallah the boxes on credit instead of either
taking the Rs 500 note or not selling the cigarettes to him at all. The chaiwallah,
out of options, agreed and put his Rs 500 note back into his pocket with a
sigh.
He then turned to me and said, “What have we poor people
done? Why should we have to suffer for all the black money these businessmen
and politicians have accumulated? We hardly have enough money to run our
business and our house.”
And thus, the chaiwallah remains the unwilling and helpless
collateral damage in this nationwide war on black money initiated by one of his
own.
