The Life and Death of the Rs 2,000 Note

In this analysis of the government’s recent withdrawal of the Rs 2,000 note, Dr. Sukhlata Sen examines the state’s attempts to curb illegal activities and their impact on the Indian economy.

Excerpt:

“Often the enforcement of a legislation, as we have learnt from our experience of demonetisation, spawns more illegal activities. The ‘deviant’ subculture among those taking to brokering in black markets, counterfeiting and smuggling, may be seen as instances of the legal and the illegal zones fades into each other, where ‘illegal’ as a category becomes increasingly nebulous. Ascribing morality to a crime is to miss the nuances through which illegal activities are acceptable to society. It also ignores the circuitous ways in which economy unfolds and operates where legal agents slide through the porous boundaries of legality.”