Trump’s Tariffs are Modi’s Demonetisation Redux: The Wrecking Ball of Economic Illiteracy; Ramdev's Beverage Bigotry
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
April 11, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
The Maharashtra government’s decision to relocate thousands of residents from Dharavi to the Deonar landfill – one of Mumbai’s largest and oldest waste dump sites – as part of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) has raised environmental and public health concerns. An investigation by The Indian Express, based on records accessed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and field visits, found that the move violates environmental norms established by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
According to the report, CPCB’s 2021 guidelines prohibit building houses, schools and hospitals on or within 100 m of closed landfills. While this rule alone would disqualify Deonar from being used, the reality is that Deonar is not even a closed landfill. In fact, it is one of the top 22 methane spots in the country, releasing an average of 6,202 kg of methane every hour.
The Indian Express has reported that the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) handed over 124 acres of the 311-acre Deonar landfill to the state government for DRP on September 27, 2024. Since then, no waste has been dumped in the site. However, a report by the newspaper last year had quoted Mumbai civic officials as having said that the process of reclaiming land from solid waste would take a minimum of 6-7 years and could cost above Rs 1,000 crore in the present circumstances. While the Maharashtra government had asked the BMC to carry out bio-mining at the site, a report by the Hindustan Times quoted BMC officials as having said that it is not possible to carry out bio-mining at the dump yard as there is no space in the city to dump the byproducts. The report gave a new timeline for the completion of such a project, if it had to take place – 12-14 years and at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore.
The Mumbai police doesn’t do anything to stop hate parades on the roads of the city but when a journalist films this lawlessness and posts the evidence on social media, the cops do their best to have the videos taken down. Kunal Purohit’s video of a Ram Navami rally near Mumbai airport featured in the India Cable this week. Now the police have written to X, formerly Twitter, claiming the videos violate the Information Technology Act and should be deleted (Videos 1 and 2; Video 3; Video 4; Video 5).
A month after Dainik Jagran journalist and RTI activist Raghvendra Bajpai was shot dead by bike-borne assailants in Sitapur, the Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday said the murder was planned by a priest whom the scribe had allegedly seen raping a minor boy in the temple, reports Omar Rashid. Police said that the temple priest got the 35-year-old journalist killed as he was concerned that he might expose the priest’s act to the world. Bajpai’s family, however, refused to believe the police theory and alleged that there was a deeper conspiracy behind the murder, and that it was linked to Bajpai’s journalism work and recent coverage of corruption and irregularities in the purchase of land and paddy in the district. Rashmi Bajpai, his wife, said that she did not trust the local police. “I want a CBI inquiry. I am not satisfied with this. They are cooking up stories,” she said in a video statement seen by The Wire soon after the Sitapur police claimed to have cracked the case.
India’s bet on Trump’s chaos is like surfing a tsunami in a teacup. Policymakers, while aware of the wreckage his policies leave behind, still toast the “opportunities” with diplomatic cheer. As Ashley Tellis warns, cozying up to turbulence might earn short-term gains, but it could backfire on New Delhi. He writes,
“That Washington now shows little interest in protecting the international order also poses new challenges to India. Although its leaders sometimes discount the value of the existing system—mostly because it has not fully accommodated India’s status claims—they have moved quickly to bolster other international relationships as supplements to the United States.
The destruction of the liberal international order does not presage multipolarity but rather consolidates the bipolarity that will subsist amid increasing entropy in global politics. Trump’s policies will enhance the conditions for China’s continued rise, increase its legitimacy as a responsible power, and—by burdening India’s development prospects and damaging U.S. alliances along the way—undermine the countervailing forces that could coherently resist Beijing when needed.
As a result, China will join the United States as a true great power, and despite not matching up fully, both nations will stand apart from the rest of the international system in terms of sheer capabilities for several decades to come. Whether this outcome really serves India’s interests remains to be seen, and even if New Delhi opportunistically secures some tactical gains as a result of Trump’s turbulence, the strategic losses it suffers could be enduring.”
Washington has sanctioned UAE-based Indian national Jugwinder Brar and the almost 30 ships operated by companies he owns for allegedly transporting Iranian oil. Mia Gindis notes that the move comes days before US and Iranian officials are scheduled to meet for nuclear negotiations.
Meanwhile, American lenders have taken legal action against Byju Raveendran, the founder of the Indian education-tech company Byju’s, and his wife, Divya Gokulnath, in a US bankruptcy court. The lawsuit, filed in Wilmington, Delaware, accused the couple of being personally responsible for more than $500 million in missing loan proceeds. The dispute centres around a defaulted $1.2 billion loan, with lenders striving for years to recover the funds. Byju’s is accused of fraudulently transferring part of the loan proceeds to a hedge fund in Miami, a move deemed unlawful by US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in February.
Following protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) against the “presence of members affiliated to the tukde tukde gang”, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune on Thursday dropped several experts invited to speak at a programme to mark the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, reports The Indian Express. In a press statement, the institute said several academics including Deepali Salve, Nazima Parveen and Smita M Patil, had been invited to speak about the dynamics of caste, economics and gender. The student wing of the RSS said that it objected to the presence of “staunch Maoists” invited to speak. “There is a chance that their statements might cause law and order problems and they would try to divide the society on the basis of religion,” The newspaper quoted the statement as saying.
MP and actor Kangana Ranaut, known for delivering eye grabbing monologues, seems less enthusiastic about delivering power bill payments. The Himachal Pradesh Electricity Board called her Rs 1 lakh bill claim “wrong and misleading,” revealing unpaid dues and a home power load of 94.82 kW - over 1,500% more than the average household. Turns out the real national crisis isn’t “anti-nationals,” it’s high voltage VIPs ghosting their electricity bills.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin has sacked senior party leader and minister, K. Ponmudy, from the post of Deputy General Secretary after a video clip of a controversial speech he made at an event organised by the Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (TPDK) in Chennai on April 6 surfaced online. The DMK minister recalled a crass joke that was made in the past in some meetings organised by the Dravidian movement, linking Saivite and Vaishnavite symbols to sexual positions. Stalin made the announcement, but did not provide a reason for the action.
The BJP and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have decided to once again join hands, this time ahead of the assembly elections scheduled for next year. The alliance will be led by AIADMK chief E Palaniswamy. Meanwhile a change of leadership is imminent in the Tamil Nadu unit of the saffron party. Arun Janardhanan notes that both incumbent state chief K Annamalai – who is out of the race – as well as Palaniswamy belong to the Gounder community, and that the BJP believes “balancing caste representation is key to expanding its vote base” in the state. He says that the most likely candidate for the post is Nainar Nagendran, who belongs to the Thevar community.
Mumbai’s municipal corporation has announced plans to hand over five major hospitals in other localities to private companies under public-private partnerships. Tabassum Barnagarwala reports that all five hospitals serve people living in slums, who would benefit from healthcare offered at government rates. There have also been protests from municipality staff who stand to be relieved of their jobs at the said hospitals. Barnagarwala also notes that once a hospital is given away under a PPP its functioning needs to be monitored to make sure its operators follow the terms of their contracts.
In a fresh instance of tension between the Meitei and Kuki communities in strife-torn Manipur, six Kuki tribal organisations on Wednesday asked Meitei not to cross the “buffer zone” for Cheirao Ching Kaba, an annual event to climb the Thangjing Hill as a part of the celebration for Cheiraoba, the Meitei New Year that starts mid-April, reports The Hindu. “Unless and until a political settlement is reached by the government of India for the Kuki-Zo-Hmar community under the Constitution of India, no such friendly approach to the jurisdiction of Kuki-Zo-Hmar land would be allowed for the Meitei community,” said a joint statement by the Kuki organisations including the Kuki Students’ Organisation. The Kuki organisations added that any effort to cross the “buffer zone” will be “opposed tooth and nail.”
India’s middle class is being squeezed dry, says investment banker Kanishk Kar, as rising costs quietly erode real purchasing power. “Real purchasing power? Quietly disappearing like a pack of Maggi in a hostel kitchen,” Kar writes on LinkedIn – a stingingly accurate metaphor. The crisis isn’t just about inflation, he warns, but about a system that rewards effort with exhaustion. “The result? The middle class is footing the bill – but isn’t getting much back”.
Observing that unmarried major parents are entitled to live together, the Allahabad high court has granted police protection to an inter-faith live-in couple, while hearing a plea filed by their minor daughter, which claimed that the erstwhile in-laws of the child’s mother threatened the couple. A division bench of justice Shekhar B Saraf and justice Vipin Chandra Dixit, in its order, observed that it appeared that the biological father and mother of the child are of different religion and had been living together since 2018. The court noted that the child is currently one year and four months old.
Baba Ramdev, co-founder of Patanjali Ayurved and habitual hate-monger, has now plunged headlong into beverage bigotry. In a video released on social media, Ramdev accused a sharbat brand of using its profits to fund the construction of mosques and madrasas. Referring to what he described as “sharbat jihad,” he urged consumers to turn instead to Patanjali’s line of juices and rose sharbat, which he said would support Hindu educational institutions. He said, “Just like there is love jihad, this is also a kind of sharbat jihad. To protect yourself from this sharbat jihad, this message must reach everyone.”
Though he was careful not to name the company he was targeting, it was clearly Hamdard, makers of the much loved thirst quencher, Rooh Afza.
The Delhi Police is “set to significantly expand its use of facial recognition — from localised experiments to full-scale, centralised operations — as part of a major shift towards AI-powered surveillance”, reports Upasika Singhal for the Indian Express. She says that at present at least two police districts in the capital “run vans equipped with an Israeli software which is capable of scanning faces on streets and flagging suspects.” On what basis, and to what end is not clear.
Climate change is making agriculture more precarious in Sri Lanka. Women farmers are especially vulnerable to its effects and are migrating out of the island as a result. This provides them with a financial buffer but they take on risks in travelling abroad and must leave behind their families in the process, reports Dimuthu Attanayake.
T20 cricket at the 2028 Summer Olympics will involve six teams in the men’s and women’s category each. It is not known how squads are to qualify. Timothy Abraham notes that the re-introduction of the sport into the Olympics is understood to be a way to “utilise cricket as a way to increase India's interest” in the games.
The BBC says that a revolution is under way in the country’s sports shoes, or trainer, industry. “But many in India can’t afford shoes from well-known brands. Serving them is a huge and intricate network of small shoe makers, known as the unorganised sector. Their affordable products are estimated to account for two-thirds of the total footwear market.” It argues that the unorganised sector should not be neglected amid the growth.
India has second highest number of WhatsApp victims targeted with Pegasus spyware
Six years after WhatsApp told the Indian government that 121 Indian users were targeted by the Israeli spyware Pegasus, new documents exhibited in its lawsuit against malware makers NSO Group say that 100 Indians were impacted. The document finds that Indians are the second-highest in number among Pegasus-affected, globally. The country with the most WhatsApp hacking victims is Mexico, which has 456 such people.
In 2021, The Wire was among an international consortium of news outlets which had unveiled the use of Pegasus with the help of a leaked list of potential targets. The NSO Group, as this consortium had reported then, says it only offers its spyware to “vetted governments”. During the 2021 news investigations, the company had refused to make its list of customers public.
A report on TechCrunch notes that the WhatsApp lawsuit spotlights the hacking campaign targeting its users over a period of only two months, “between in and around April 2019 and May 2019”. This shows that in just two months, vetted government customers of the NSO Group targeted over a thousand WhatsApp users globally. The Israeli tech site CTech, which first reported on the WhatsApp country-wise numbers, also said that a country’s inclusion on the list does not necessarily mean it was an NSO client.
The Supreme Court of India is still sitting on a report it commissioned from an expert group more than two years after it was submitted, and has yet to take action against the Modi government for refusing to cooperate with the panel.
Congress reiterates commitment to INDIA coalition
The Congress has reaffirmed its commitment towards continuing with the Opposition INDIA Bloc in a resolution adopted by the All India Congress Committee at its session in Ahmedabad. “The Congress has worked in the spirit of constructive cooperation and collective efforts, not only with our time-tested political allies but created and sustained the architecture of ‘India Alliance’ on commonality of people’s issues,” the party resolution said. “We stand committed to continuing this effort even in the future.”
The party’s resolution to work towards Opposition unity comes amid recent electoral losses in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Delhi.
‘This is not Gujarat, this is Kerala’
Youth Congress and DYFI activists staged a protest during the foundation stone-laying ceremony of a skill development centre for intellectually challenged children in Palakkad, opposing the municipality’s decision to name the centre after RSS ideologue and founder K.B. Hedgewar. The project, located within Palakkad municipality limits and spread across a third of an acre, is being developed with financial assistance of Rs 1.5 crore from the CSR fund of a private corporate firm, Oceanus Dwellings. “BJP-ruled municipality is deliberately attempting to saffronise Kerala,” alleged Congress and DYFI activists. “This is not Gujarat, this is Kerala,” said DYFI demonstrators.
The Long Cable
Trump’s Tariffs are Modi’s Demonetisation Redux: The Wrecking Ball of Economic Illiteracy
Trump’s tariffs and Modi’s demonetisation are cautionary tales of strongman politics – of policies propelled by a mix of ego and ignorance rather than knowledge and expertise. Their actions reveal a dangerous pattern: when leaders in a democracy are not held accountable for their decisions, the people pay the price.
Seema Chishti
India has seen this movie before.
As Donald Trump’s decisions on tariffs wreak havoc on the US economy in 2025, the parallels to Narendra Modi’s 2016 demonetisation are impossible to ignore.
Both leaders, driven by populist bravado, authoritarian hubris and a penchant for disruptive theatrics, implemented policies that exposed their economic illiteracy, sidelined institutional advice and inflicted widespread suffering on ordinary citizens—all while shifting goalposts to justify their actions, and leaving their nations grappling with chaos.
Modi’s decision to suddenly demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes was inspired not by rigorous economic analysis but by a chance meeting with Anil Bokil of the Arthakranti Sansthan. Bokil’s simplistic proposal claimed that demonetisation could eradicate black money and encourage digital transactions. Modi, captivated by the idea’s populist appeal, decided to act unilaterally. This impulsive approach bypassed institutional checks, including the Reserve Bank of India, which had critiqued the government’s justification for demonetisation before reluctantly recommending it just hours before the announcement. The harebrained idea had already been rejected by Raghuram Rajan when he was the RBI governor. Well, it turns out Trump got his ideas from a fictional economics expert [See Rachel Maddow below].
Trump’s punitive tariffs on dozens of countries may have been “paused” for 90 days but echo Modi’s overnight invalidation of 86% of India’s cash. Both policies were rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of economic mechanics. Trump’s belief that trade deficits equate to “losses” mirrors Modi’s flawed assumption that erasing cash would erase black money. Economists warned against both: the Tax Foundation think-tank estimates Trump’s tariffs could slash US GDP by 0.8%, while India’s growth plummeted from 8.3% in 2016 to 4% pre-pandemic after demonetisation. The collateral damage? Small businesses. India’s cash-dependent MSME sector collapsed, wiping out jobs, just as US agricultural and manufacturing sectors are now bracing for tariff-induced inflation and retaliatory measures from Canada and China. Both leaders have displayed an inability to grasp the complex ripple effects of their policies on global and domestic economies.
Secrecy defined Modi’s decision-making process. All ministers including senior ministers were kept in the dark until hours before his televised announcement on November 8, 2016. Justice BV Nagarathna of India’s Supreme Court later criticised this approach, noting that such a sweeping decision should have been enacted through legislation or an ordinance rather than a mere executive notification. This lack of transparency mirrors Trump’s tariff strategy, where decisions were made without consulting trade experts or economists, not to speak of his cabinet members, prioritising spectacle over substance.
Both leaders gaslit publics with ever-changing justifications. Modi’s demonetisation began as a war on black money, morphed into a push for digital payments, and ended as a nationalist “sacrifice”. Trump’s tariffs, initially framed as correcting trade imbalances, now masquerade as national security imperatives. The outcomes? Modi’s policy ended up recycling 99.3% of the cash he had invalidated, exposing its futility, while Trump’s tariffs have already triggered a $4 trillion stock market wipeout and risk escalating into a global trade war.
The human toll of these policies is staggering.
In India, demonetisation caused massive disruption in the informal economy, which employs over 85% of the workforce. Farmers and daily wage earners faced liquidity shortages, small businesses collapsed, and unemployment soared. Over 100 people reportedly died waiting in queues to exchange their money. Justice Nagarathna’s dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court highlighted how the government bypassed proper procedures under Section 26(2) of the RBI Act, undermining institutional safeguards. Trump’s tariffs have similarly hurt vulnerable sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. Higher consumer prices and job losses in export-dependent industries are pushing US unemployment toward 5%. Both policies disproportionately harmed ordinary citizens while rich elites largely escaped unscathed.
In January 2023, more than six years after the event, the Supreme Court upheld Modi’s demonetisation by a 4:1 majority but offered little solace to critics. The majority opinion deemed the decision proportionate and legally valid, but Justice Nagarathna dissented sharply. She reasoned that demonetisation was unlawful due to procedural flaws and should have been enacted through legislation or an ordinance. Her judgment underscores how secrecy and haste undermined democratic processes, an authoritarian tendency equally seen with Trump’s unilateral tariff impositions. As is currently being witnessed in the US, India’s Supreme Court could have done much better.
As could have the country’s big media.
Like with Trump’s tariffs and the US big media, most Indian newspapers and television channels portrayed a sense of normalcy around Modi’s sudden decision making. It was portrayed as a policy decision where newspapers reported the decision on the assumption that there was a clever-clever reason why, actually, demonetisation made total sense and was good for the public. Economic rationale and governance goals were ascribed to Modi by editors and analysts who found it hard to state that ignorance, caprice and nihilism were – and remain – the drivers of his politics. In trying to find shape, pattern and method in the chaos created then, they misled the people into believing that a grandiose secret plan was at work when there was none.
Trump’s tariffs and Modi’s demonetisation are cautionary tales of strongman politics, of policies propelled by a dangerous mix of ego and ignorance rather than knowledge and expertise. Modi asked for 50 days and said he should “be hanged in public” if demonetisation failed. Trump has been smarter than him in not making such a claim. But both sidelined institutional advice, prioritised tamasha and not reasoning, were left unchecked by courts, parliament and a section of the media, and inflicted widespread harm on their economies. Their actions reveal a dangerous pattern: when leaders in a democracy are not held accountable for their decisions, the people pay the price.
India should have learned this lesson in 2016; America will hopefully learn it now.
Democracies must demand deliberation, consultation, transparency – and above all, accountability – from their leaders. If not, megalomaniacs risk turning governance into vanity projects of ignorance, lighting bonfires of economic prosperity and public welfare.
Reportedly
That the saffron party still does not have a new president suggests that Narendra Modi is “not his own man is taking the key decision”, write Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari. They note that recent reports have had it that (i) Modi’s visit to the RSS’s headquarters last month has failed to bring about a rapprochement between the party and the mothership, and (ii) that the Sangh remains keen that Nadda’s successor be a ‘strong organisational leader’ as opposed to a ‘rubber stamp’.
Deep dive
A socio-economic survey by Rukmi Pradeep and Srinivas Goli in Uttar Pradesh reveals that aside from modest Dalit upward mobility, the occupational gap between upper-caste Hindus and other groups remains unchanged or has even widened. “Although mobility was universal across the castes with socio-economic transition, most of the upper castes ascended the social ladder to attain better jobs in the service and business sectors (high-paid jobs with social security). This was more than the shift of lower castes to unskilled labour and manual jobs in the Grade C category (low-paid jobs with least social security). The upper castes were retreating from lower income occupations while the lower castes among both Hindus and Muslims filled the vacancies left by them. The intergenerational predominance of Hindu general castes in Grade A and B service sector jobs, business, and trading demonstrated that the gap in the level of intergenerational mobility between upper-caste groups and marginalised caste groups had widened over successive generations”.
Prime number: Rs 8,913 crore
That’s how much the railways appears to have saved between March 2020 and February 2025 by rolling back fare concessions for senior citizens, as per an analysis of data obtained via RTI, reports Prakash Chandra Sharma.Opeds you don’t want to miss
The rest of the world has been funding excess US consumption in recent times, writes MK Venu as he looks at Trump’s tariff capitulation and asks: Will India support some of the disastrous ways in which Trump plans to handle this?
Sanjaya Baru looks at Modi’s tariff silence and wonders whether India no longer is the voice of the Global South.
Ashok Lavasa proposes the idea of a “deflator” that can “moderate the benefit that states might derive on account of higher population” in parliament, such as the fertility rates of individual states. At any rate, he writes that “strengthening the third tier of elected bodies may be more meaningful for democracy” than “clamouring for more seats”.
There is a realisation that New Delhi can no longer afford to wait out Muhammad Yunus, delaying engagement with Bangladesh until an elected government is in place, writes Nirupama Subramanian.
Jyotirao Phule stood for the unity of the opporessed and his assertions against caste ran parallel to his critique of gender and calls for an egalitarian society, writes Harish Wankhede.Trump aims to create a military establishment that will toe his line, but he is “in for a surprise” because it will “adhere to the constitutional values and legislated laws, and strictly apply the principle of lawful command to orders received from the executive”, writes Lieutenant General (retired) HS Panag. As for matters on this side of the Atlantic, he notes that “the default norm is that the hierarchy adheres to political directions, treating them like military orders without questioning their constitutional propriety”.
Cyrus Naji writes about a Media Reform Commission set up by Bangladesh’s interim government to address press freedom, and the threats and patterns of control that remain.
India has made big strides on the basic education front but a lot of progress remains to be made as far as higher education is concerned. Still, writes Rukmini S, “just how long a way we have to go came as something of a surprise to me”: for instance, three out of ten young Indian adults are currently enrolled in higher education as opposed to seven in ten young Chinese adults.
The Supreme Court’s adverse judgement of Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi’s actions will shine the spotlight on attempts by various governors to stall legislations in non-BJP-ruled states. Amid this, Bharat Bhushan recalls that the “record of the Modi government … has been to brazen out criticism and even reward those governors who go beyond their job description”.
Listen up
History reveals how India can close the gap with China – listen here to find out Kishore Mahbubani’s analysis.
Watch out
Trump may have paused his so-called reciprocal tariffs (except for China) “but the danger is not over” and the “uncertainty continues”, former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian says. He believes that the overall impact of the tariffs on India may be greater than initially anticipated. Subramanian is also of the view that India has become very protectionist over the last couple of years; “there are things that we need to do for own sake” and if we can “make them gel with” what Delhi will seek to achieve in trade talks with the US, that would be a good thing.
Over and out
“For decades,” writes Hannah Twiggs in the Independent, “family-run Chinese and Indian restaurants … formed the backbone of British high streets.” But as the heads of those families age, what will become of their establishments? “The children who grew up in the kitchens and dining rooms their parents built now stand at a crossroads. Some are walking away entirely. Others are returning on their own terms. And many are asking: are we going to be the last generation? Does it all end with us?”
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