, Columnist
Modi's Biggest Move Is a Total Bust
Eliminating 86 percent of the country's currency has had zero benefits.
Food prices crashed.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
When India’s prime minister announced last November that 86 percent of India’s currency would be worthless in hours, he presented the decree as a well-thought-out measure to attack cash “hoarded by anti-national and anti-social elements.” We were led to believe that honest taxpayers would line up to return their high-value currency notes, but these “anti-national and anti-social elements” would be unable to do so without raising suspicion. In the words of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley: “Obviously people who have used cash for crime purposes are not foolhardy enough to try and risk and bring the cash back into the system because there will be questions asked.”