'Doston' is the new 'Mitron': 'Unfriended' nation cracks up

NEW DELHI: From Brexit and Donald Trump to the Nobel for Bob Dylan and the demonetisation, the year 2016 has been full of shocks and surprises. But its last day proved a damp squib for India. If the drama in the Samajwadi Party fizzled out with a tame end to Akhilesh Yadav's suspension, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's failure to play Santa seemed a bigger letdown to many. Modi's address to the nation had been preceded by a surge in expectations of a big-ticket announcement that would attempt to assuage citizens' demonetisation wounds. Several television channels had done countdown programming for the event.

But the anticipated deposit of a few thousand rupees in every Jan Dhan account proved as much of a mirage as Modi's pre-election promise of Rs 15 lakh for every family from the black money recovered from overseas.

All that the Prime Minister offered in compensation for the demonetisation woes were a few crumbs for the poor, farmers, pregnant women and small industries in the form of policy tweaks. In the end, the nation had to console itself that there was no shocker similar to the November 8 note recall. Tipplers, refusing to be weighed down by such fears, had already devised a drinking game to swallow any possible bitter pill. It hinged on Modi's possible choice of words: a sip each for " mitron" (friends) or "mere pyaare deshwasiyon" (my beloved countrymen), a shot for " gareeb" (the poor), two for "kalpana keejiye" (just imagine), and a swig for " anubhav" (experience) or if your name was Vikas, Vishal, Neeti or Asha - words that abound in Modi speeches. Pub chain Social on Saturday had offered beer at Rs 31 – an over 200 per cent discount – once Modi says “mitro”, a commonly used phrase in his speeches addressing the fellow countrymen as friends. Jokes apart, the Prime Minister, while seeming to acknowledge the people's demonetisation miseries, did not address any of the issues flagged by the Opposition. He raised a toast to the citizens' struggles and sacrifices in this " shuddhi yagna'' (cleansing ritual) but volunteered no details on how much black money had been recovered. All he had to offer was an assurance that those hoarding ill-gotten wealth would not escape punishment, nor would officials who connived with them to exchange their unaccounted money. In an apparent dig at the Opposition, he said that if Jayaprakash Narayan, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ram Manohar Lohia and Kamaraj had been alive, they would have applauded the patience, discipline and resolve of Indians. He did not mention Jawaharlal Nehru but brought up Mahatma Gandhi towards the end. Modi tied one of his pet projects - simultaneous elections from panchayat to Parliament - to demonetisation, speaking of ending the "endless cycle of elections" to reduce expenditure and pressure on the administration. He appeared to have an academic agenda too, saying that while economists would inevitably evaluate the demonetisation, social scientists too should study an exercise "that has no parallel in the world".