A Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution at the same time.

In 1958 Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward in China, as part of his second 5 year plan, in which ploughs were melted down to be made into steel. Agricultural output collapsed and tens of millions of people died. Mao was replaced as President of China by Liu Shaoqi. But Mao would have his revenge. In 1966, he unleashed his Cultural Revolution in which Red Guards were encouraged to destroy the older culture. Millions more died. Liu Shaoqi was arrested and virtually beaten to death. Something like that is going on in India right now, but in a more disguised manner. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unleashed his own version of the Great Leap Forward by suddenly banning Rs 1000 and Rs 500 on 8 November. This was apparently to root out black money, which is money accumulated by not paying taxes or by taking bribes. But the actual reason was the upcoming elections in Punjab, at the end of January 2017, and then in UP, in February and March 2017. Modi wants to win these elections, so as not to lose his home state of Gujarat later in the year. Elections are expensive and political parties spend huge amounts of cash in campaigning and in bribing voters. But years of persecution by politicians have made Indians experts in 'jugaad', known as 'Heath Robinson' in Britain. Poor people were paid to exchange Rs 4,500 in old notes from banks. Others were paid to deposit Rs 200,000 in Jan Dhan accounts, which are no-balance accounts for the poor. Over Rs 700 billion have been deposited, which means 3.5 million accounts. Add another 2 million housewives and you have over 5 million people guilty of money laundering. Modi was hoping that about Rs 4 trillion will not be returned which will be paid as dividend to the government by the Reserve Bank, to be distributed as bribes to poor. Apparently, that may not happen as the amount of money deposited far exceeds expectations. Maddened with rage Modi has unleashed his own version of the Cultural Revolution on us. He is going to force a cashless society on us. Modi is a master of lying. Despite repeated assurances, and despite a Supreme Court injunction, the biometric card, Aadhar has been made mandatory by stealth. Modi wants to make all payments based on Aadhar. This will mean that the government will have complete knowledge of where we are and what we are buying at every second. But Modi may have made a miscalculation. It is possible that he was convinced of Hillary Clinton's victory, as predicted by almost every opinion poll, except USC/LA Times. Trump won. Already the rupee is dropping against the dollar. If the rupee tanks oil prices will zoom, inflation will jump and the economy will go into recession. Maybe, then we will get rid of Modi. A short term pain to get rid of a megalomaniac. Worth it.