Women made to disclose home savings over scrapping of notes

HT, 13 Nov 2016, NEW DELHI: The government’s ‘surgical strike’ on black money has hit an unintended target: Housewives. Millions of them have been forced to disclose the savings that they kept in nooks and crannies of their houses, away from the glare of their needy husbands.

Tapas Chakraborty, a primary school teacher in Bolpur, was stumped when his wife Nandini brought to him `27,000—in `1,000 and R500 denominations—to him last Wednesday, the morning after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s addressed the nation to declare the scrapping of high-value notes.

“On Tuesday morning when I asked her to give me `2,000, she said she had `500 only,” he said. It was Nandini’s hard-earned money, collected diligently from Tapas’ wallet over the past four years.

Nearly 850 kms away from Bolpur, Sangeeta Gupta, wife of a retired army doctor in Lucknow, looked“pale” when she brought her `2 lakh savings to her husband. “I couldn’ t control my laughter. I asked her togo off to sleep without worrying as the money would remain with her,” said AK Gupta, her husband.

“I didn’t save the money for myself. It was for emergencies and bad times,” she said.

There are millions of Nandinis and Sangeetas across the country whose hearts must have sunk after hearing Modi’s televised speech last Tuesday. However, these housewives are not complaining. “What I had kept at home isn’t black money. If it’s out, there isn’t anything to feel bad about. The government’s intention to bring out black money should be praised,” said Sangeeta.

Prof Ramu Manivannan of Madras University said: “Modi government will be seen as doing something concrete, which the previous Congress governments could not.”