Note: This blog may or maynot have anything to do with the honourable PM's demonetization decision.
Not many years ago, in the Mughal era, in the same land as ours ruled Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. He thought himself to be the smartest of all rulers. One day, after a visit to a rich neighboring kingdom he became obsessed with the idea of increasing his wealth. The very next day he announced that all the gold coins in the kingdom used as currency will no longer be legal tender. All the coins will have to be submitted to the state treasury and in return copper, brass and leather coins will be circulated among the people. It was a brilliant decision. All Muhammad Bin Tughlaq's ministers rejoiced and praised his bold decision because as the gold in the state treasury will increase, so will their personal wealth. And also, because had they gone against the decision they would have been beheaded. The masses were confused. Those who blindly followed Tughlaq, sang his praises. The simple folks of the kingdom thought that gold or brass - it would have no effect on them what so ever.
But they were wrong. The queues outside the treasury grew long. Many clever fellows used cheap yellow metal to make fake coins and exchanged them for the new brass or copper currency. The simple folks forgo their daily wage jobs to stand in queues to exchange the money. But the problem that Muhammad Bin Tughlaq had not foreseen was that brass and copper were cheap metals - easily available. The clever masses started minting their own coins. The currency in circulation grew thrice in size leaving the king and his ministers flummoxed! The neighbouring kingdoms stopped trading with Muhammad bin Tughlaq's kingdom fearing his fake currency will penetrate their economic system as well. This paralysed the entire economy of the kingdom and business dropped tragically.
To try and control the situation, the king made new rules everyday - about 60 in number. But that just led to further chaos. The good people suffered. Due to his hasty decision, Tughlaq ended up punishing honest people and ruining his kingdom's economy.
To this day, remembering the king's hasty, unreasonable decisions, there is saying for when people end up taking hasty decisions without thinking them through - "Tughlaqi Faisla" or Tughlaq like decisions.
True story.
P.S.: For reasons best known to him, Tughlaq also decided to shift the capital of his kingdom from Delhi to Daulatabad (current Maharashtra). He thought it was more central and would save the capital from frequent attacks from Mongols. But he was not content with only shifting the official court to the new capital - he made the entire population of Delhi shift to Daulatabad too. This was an expensive decision. Once he reached Daulatabad, the Mongols attacked northern India. Thousands of lives and valuable property was lost and there were no forces to defend the former capital. Moreover, trade with neighbouring kingdoms declined. Tughlaq realised his mistake and moved the capital back to Delhi. Hundreds of thousands lost their life in the journey to Daulatabad and back.
P.P.S: Maybe we should prepare for our capital to be shifted from Delhi to Ahmedabad too.
