Spotlight

New Delhi, 16 December 2016

Demonetisation Row

UPA INACTIVE ON PAK DESIGNS

By Proloy Bagchi

The e-mails had been doing the rounds for sometime carrying the supposed facts regarding reasons for the sudden demonetisation but one couldn’t really believe all that was conveyed in these. True, Modi had in his election campaign promised he would fight the menace of black money and bring back all that was stashed away in banks abroad. But, two- and-a-half years had gone by and yet nothing was seemingly moving on that front. He was, therefore, being baited and mocked at by the Opposition inside and outside Parliament for his extravagant unfulfilled promises.

Perhaps, they were all wrong. He was waiting for an opportune moment. What the e-mails contained was indeed alarming and, if things would have been allowed to be left as they were, the country would have been in serious trouble. There is a furore over the problems created by demonetisation of high value currency notes at every level of Indian society, more so for the poor and deprived classes. But, one cannot really imagine the consequences had no action been taken on what Pakistan was plotting for economic and financial destabilisation of the country.

A report in a national daily Hindustan Times last week carried some of the facts but not all. According to it, Modi had said while campaigning in 2014 in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh on the Indo-Nepal border that he would fight the ISI designs to destabilise this country. There was a specific reason for this statement and it was mentioned in the daily’s report rather cursorily.

In 2009, the Police had seized Rs 4 crore in fake Indian currency notes (FICN) from the currency chest of a nationalised bank. These notes were supplied to that bank by none other than the Reserve Bank of India. The detection of FICN in the currency chest of a nationalised bank was a serious matter. But the newspaper did not report how it was dealt with by the Reserve Bank or the Centre. This is where the newspaper became part of the secular press as it would have exposed the erstwhile Sonia Gandhi-led United Progressive Alliance government.

The facts are contained in the e-mails that have been in circulation for some time. One did not pay attention as one thought it was probably a prank of Congress baiters. Now that the daily, seen as an unabashed Congress supporter, has reported it howsoever cursorily, it seems the episode was true and very alarming and the Congress government at the Centre chose to put a lid on it. It did not take any action and in the bureaucratic rigmarole, the matter seemed to have been suppressed and buried.

This is where these identical e-mails come in which tell the entire story and the huge ramifications in India of further lackadaisical approach to this sinister design of the ISI and Pakistan government. The story of demonetisation begins 2009-10 when 70-odd nationalised banks along the Indo-Nepal border were raided only to find counterfeit Indian currency notes and what was shocking was these were supplied by the RBI. That only meant that even the Central Bank had been compromised and it was circulating FICN pushed into India by Pakistan.

On inquiries by the CBI it was found that the FICNs were so close to the genuine currency that an ordinary mortal could not detect it. It was only some foreign labs which confirmed that those notes were fake. The minute detail that proved this was reportedly inserted only to distinguish them from genuine Indian currency notes.

Investigations in the matter had proved that the mischief was being done at the UK-based company De la Rue from which the RBI was buying 95% of the currency paper. The company was also supplying paper to Pakistan. Blacklisting of the company reduced it to bankruptcy. Later printing of currency notes was outsourced to three foreign companies but soon there was an anonymous complaint around 2011 from Ministry of Finance officials who seemed to have said it was not De la Rue alone which was compromising the security of the bank notes, other foreign companies too were doing the same. One does not know what action was taken by the Government but it seems this information was withheld from the Union Finance and Home ministries.

Sometime later, on Modi’s initiative in 2015 another foreign firm –Louisenthal, a German company– was found to be supplying currency paper to Pakistan, which was printing high quality fake currency notes and pushing them into India from all directions over land and by air. The Home Ministry barred it from selling bank note paper to the RBI. Pakistan had jacked up the printing of FICN and pushed them into India with vigour and confidence that its economic and financial sabotage would go undetected.

If one goes by what security expert Gen. GD Bakshi has to say then an idea would be got of the extent of damage that could have been caused by unchecked infiltration of FICN from across the border. He says India had around Rs.16 trillion worth of Rs 500 and Rs. 1000 currency notes in circulation. Pakistan was already printing 15 trillion of these notes to smuggle them into India as it had established five sophisticated presses for the purpose. This, as Gen Bakshi says, would have “unhinged” the Indian economy with runaway inflation, steep price rise and unlimited terror funding.

In fact, under these circumstances demonetisation came rather late. Nonetheless, it came before much damage could be done. With the ban on high value currency notes frequency of terror strikes have gone down and the stone pelters of Kashmir are out of business. Even the Hurriyat, which used to distribute (counterfeit) money received from Pakistan, has now invited tourists to visit Kashmir as it is fearful of losing relevance in the absence of the old and now-banned high value currency notes. Even the Pakistani kingpin of FICN committed suicide the other day, finding himself in a tight corner after demonetisation.

It is unbelievable that Congress’ Manmohan Singhs, Rahul Gandhis and Gulam Nabi Azads were not aware of the goings on. It is during the UPA-led government reign that the RBI was found to have been compromised. Only they did not take the breach of security seriously enough. Now that they are caught on the wrong foot they have raised merry hell and have disrupted virtually the entire winter session of Parliament. Even Rahul Gandhi, has been threatening of an earthquake or bursting the balloon were he to be allowed to speak in Lok Sabha. Can it be bigger than the then government’s inaction subsequent to detection of major security breach? ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)