Protests against Demonetisation

Several opposition parties organised a Jan Aakrosh Diwas (public outrage day) on Monday to protest against demonetisation of high value currency notes. The parties said they do not seek a rollback of the scheme but want urgent measures to help rural India, especially the farmers stranded without cash. The Congress party, leading the agitation, was the first to call for protests. Others joined them later. The Congress said they did not call for a Bharat Bandh. Only the Left Front had called for Bharat Bandh.

The protests were more or less peaceful. There were almost no protests in several states. A state-wise account of the protests, in brief, compiled from various news reports follows.

Andhra Pradesh

The response to the strike call was lukewarm in Andhra Pradesh. The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) did not support bandh. Though Congress too did not support it, it took part in protests and torched effigies of PM Narendra Modi at various places. The main opposition party, YSR Congress, of the state and the Left Front parties, tried to disrupt bus service and to shut shops. However, the response was poor. The Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu was the lone top politician to consistently demand the ban of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes.

Bihar

Road traffic and normal life were mostly not disrupted in Bihar, but rail traffic was affected with 15 trains stranded at various places. The Congress held a Jan Akrosh Diwas march in Patna. The supporters of the Left such as CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) and others blocked trains at Bhagalpur, Gaya, Jehanabad, Muzaffarpur and Patna stations. The Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who supports demonetisation, has said that his party, JDU, is opposed to the protests.

Goa

The Congress, NCP, AAP and CPI (M) organised token protests in Goa. The Congress held protests near the main office of State Bank of India in the capital, Panaji.

Himachal Pradesh

The Himachal Pradesh government (Congress-led) did not participate in Bharat bandh.

Jammu and Kashmir

Police detained Congress party supporters participating in Jan Aakrosh Diwas rally in Jammu.

Karnataka

The Congress and CPI (M) held rallies in Bengaluru. The Congress government in Karnataka said it would mark the Aakrosh Diwas rather than a bandh. The state Education Department had allowed colleges and schools to be closed, but schools were mostly open. Public transport was not affected.

Kerala

Cabinet ministers of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and MLAs of CPI (M) participated in a protest march in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city. The bandh disrupted normal life in the state. Schools, colleges, shops, public transport and offices remained nonfunctional. Even private vehicles were stopped by protestors in north Kerala. In some places auto-rickshaws were plying. Patients visiting the Regional Cancer Centre and railway passengers were transported in Police vehicles. Sabarimala pilgrims and marriage parties were exempted from bandh. It’s the peak tourist season in Kerala. So, the government exempted tourists from the bandh.

Maharashtra

The NCP called for protest marches in several districts. The Congress party held a Jan Aakrosh march from Kalina in Mumbai.

Meghalaya

In the state capital Shillong, Congress workers organised a rally, holding posters that read ‘organised loot’, ‘legalised plunder’ and ‘monumental mismanagement of demonetisation’.

Nagaland

The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee staged a protest rally in the commercial centre Dimapur, and the District Congress Committees held rallies at district headquarters.

Odisha

The BJD-led government, which backs demonetisation, ordered schools and colleges to close, fearing law and order deterioration. But Maoists supported bandh. Congress supporters and workers of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) affiliated to CPI (M) protested before the RBI office in Bhubaneswar.

Tamil Nadu

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam (DMK) held protests in Chennai. The leader of the opposition M K Stalin and a party worker were detained by police.

Telangana

The ruling party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) decided not to support bandh. Though the Congress too stayed away citing inconvenience to traders, it staged protests and torched effigies of PM Narendra Modi at various places. Life was normal, except a number of auto-rickshaws going off the roads.

Tripura

Life was disrupted in Tripura as the Left Front organised Bharat Bandh. Vehicles remained off the roads. Offices, shops, educational institutions and banks were closed. Rail transport was disrupted as workers of the leftist parties blocked trains.

Uttar Pradesh

The Samajwadi Party (SP) workers torched an effigy of the Prime Minister in Allahabad. Leaders of both BSP and SP said that they are not enforcing Bharat Bandh but they are only protesting against demonetisation. Normal life was not affected in the capital Lucknow as the traders union refused to shut shops. Markets, including Aminabad, Hazratganj, conducted business as usual. Shops in Shahganj market in Agra remained open though Monday was a weekly off day.

Uttarakhand

Life was normal in Uttarakhand on Monday, with business establishments and educational institutions remaining open. However, the Congress held rallies at all district headquarters.

West Bengal

Life was normal in West Bengal despite the Left Front call for bandh. Public transport and markets were functioning normally. The strike was opposed by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). So, the state government ordered all employees to attend offices, with some exceptions. The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee joined a protest rally in Kolkata. Banerjee wants demonetisation to be reversed. The leftists, including CPI (M) and CPI, staged protests.

Demonetisation hit hawala and fake currency the most

People standing in queue outside a private bank to deposit and exchange Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes at Salt Lake City, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Following the demonetisation drive by the government, a lot of people who have accumulated Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes have panicked and acted in bizarre ways. Some others destroyed/burned money that they thought could not be used. Several real estate dealers, transport operators, wholesale traders and others who used to do business in cash only adapted strange ways to convert their defunct bank notes to legal tender. Here are some of the instances that I could read today.

A 60-year-old woman named Mariyumma Muhammed, a native of Kotukkara near Kondotty in Kerala’s Malappuram district, went on Saturday to the SBI branch at Kondotty with 49 currency notes of Rs 1000 denomination (Rs 49000). Finding 37 of the notes counterfeit (Rs 37,000), the SBI officials informed the police who arrested and later remanded her to judicial custody. On questioning, she said her sons working in the Gulf sent the money through Hawala channels. The money was meant for construction of a house.

According to various reports the counterfeit currency notes seized from various places in Kerala in the last few years were printed outside India. Continued and intensive checking and seizure of fake currency by the authorities only forced the operators to change their modus operandi to transport and use Indian Fake Currency Notes (FICN).

According to reports, FICN operators have widespread networks in Kerala and Karnataka and receive over Rs 50,000 crore through Hawala. Almost all the money meant for funding terrorism and other antinational activities enters India through this route.

In another case after the demonetisation drive, Sumit Kumar Tudu of Kendrapara district in Odisha was arrested by Odisha police. He went to deposit Rs 2.5 lakh in the SBI branch at Khurda town near Bhubaneswar. The bank officials found 42 fake notes of Rs 1,000 and 10 fake notes of Rs 500 totaling Rs 47,000. Deba Prasad Kanhar, the in-charge of SBI Khurda, said that they informed the police. Sumit Kumar Tudu claimed that he is the son of a bank officer and his father asked him to deposit the money in his father’s account.

In another sad case, a 48-year old man named Unni, a Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) employee, who came to deposit Rs 500,000 worth banned high denomination notes in the State Bank of Travancore in Thalassery, fell to his death from the second floor of the building.

Interestingly, within days of introduction of the new Rs. 2,000 note, Ashok, an onion grower in Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka, was cheated by a stranger with a photocopy of the note on Saturday morning, which he came to know only when his friends told him later.

The new 500 and 2,000 rupee notes are considered "high security" notes having several new security features and cannot be easily counterfeited compared to the now invalid notes.

As a result of demonetization, the Hawala racketeers in Mumbai have taken the worst hit and no transaction is likely to take place in the near future. Business circles in Mumbai fear it will pull down businesses that are accused of heavily depended on such illegal money.

Banks in the country received 3 trillion rupees ($44.4 billion) in the in the first four days after the government’s move to ban high denomination notes on November 8, the Finance Ministry said on Sunday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Sunday directed all banks to submit daily reports of cash withdrawals across the counter and through ATMs in order to compile accurate data of currency circulation.

That finally comes to drying up of all the resources of fake currency notes and money in the illegal money transfer circuit, at least for now. Also, a lot of money that avoided the banking route will now get deposited and there will be a huge churning in the entire Indian economy. Of course, there are difficulties being faced by the common people, but I think it help in the long run.