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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Distract from Ineffectual Governance, Say Civil Society Members -Nehmat Kaur
-TheWire.in

As the unorganised sector continues suffering, civil society members, bankers and politicians remain sceptical of demonetisation’s impact on black money.

It is no secret that India’s informal sector, a largely cash-based economy, has taken a big hit because of demonetisation. While the government insists that the suffering is only temporary and worth it for cracking down on black money, several representatives from the unorganised sector are presenting a starkly different account of things on the ground.

At a public meeting, held yesterday evening at the Constitution Club, speakers representing domestic workers, hawkers and fishermen spoke about the economic condition of their communities, painting a vivid picture of the damage caused by the sheer shortage of cash.

Domestic workers, daily wage labourers, rickshaw and auto drivers, dhobis, street vendors such as hawkers, fishermen and others in the informal cash economy now have to choose between going to work and earning money or joining serpentine queues to access their own money.

Sunita, representing the Domestic Worker’s Union, told the packed hall, “aam janta ke pass kala dhan nahi hai, hum roz kamaate hain aur roz khaate hain.” (The common people don’t have black money, we earn on a daily basis and spend on a daily basis.)

As Dipankar Bhattacharya, CPI-ML, pointed out, the government may claim that poor people don’t have the larger denomination notes, those who get their earnings on a weekly basis are “obviously paid in Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. Everyone has them.”

It is the day-to-day nature of such wage-based work that has made demonetisation especially damaging to the unorganised sector.

Women who work as domestic helpers find themselves in queues for days, only to find out that banks don’t have new notes to dispense. Then they return to work to be questioned by their employers on their absence; meanwhile, buying groceries, paying school fees for their children and paying rent has become nearly impossible with landlords insisting on new notes and, vendors like Mother Dairy unable to accept old currency.

Sunita added that this trade-off is forcing several women to take on more debt as they increasingly function on credit, waiting for the cash economy to stabilise.

Things are no better for the four crore street vendors who conduct business in India – represented at the meeting by Shaktiman Ghosh, National Hawkers’ Foundation – who have lost over 50% of their business due to the cash shortage.

Ghosh added that the unorganised sector, including vendors, middlemen and producers from small-scale, home-based and cottage industries, has been negatively impacted across the board with sales plummeting by over 50%.

To add to these problems, Ghosh said 60% of street vendors in India do not have bank accounts, leaving them stranded in much the same way that others in the informal sector have been – unable to earn or utilise what they do have.

The people who are in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision are the ones with “chaar se paanch credit cards” (four to five cards) in their pockets, Ghosh told the audience.

He concluded by labelling the move a big saazish (conspiracy) by the forces that support having a cashless economy.

T. Peter, from the National Fishworkers’ Forum, echoed the same set of conditions, saying work has come to a standstill for most fishermen across the country. The tight economic conditions are exacerbated by the fact that most don’t have bank accounts, imperilling not just their earning capacity but also their savings.

Referring to how demonetisation is destroying lives, Peter said, “It’s a matter of embarrassment that Modi is not listening to the people, but has focused on visiting as many nations as possible in a bid to raise his personal status.”

Peter added that all the people sitting in parliament should be held accountable for their inaction in the face of such suffering and urged the audience, along with fishermen, members of the Dalit and Aadivasi communities, to come together and demand that the move be rolled back.

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