Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned demonetisation into a test of “courageous patriotism” by calling the decision a fight against corruption, black money, counterfeit currency and terrorism, journalist Barkha Dutt said on Tuesday. Writing for The Washington Post, she said Modi had positioned the discontinuation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as a public “sacrifice” for the greater good of the country.

The journalist said the Modi government’s decision to discontinue the high-value notes had drawn parallels with former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s policies, including her decision to nationalise banks. “Modi’s speech at a mammoth political rally at the onset of 2017 virtually replicated a slogan from hers [Gandhi’s] in 1971,” Dutt said. “Two months on, we must ask: What exactly did his decision achieve?”

Noting that the “actual aim” of the currency ban remained unclear, Dutt questioned whether the Centre had miscalculated the amount of cash it had expected to be deposited at banks after the November 8 announcement. “People deposited about 90% of the 15.4 trillion rupees that were removed from circulation, sharply contradicting the government estimate,” she said, adding that the Centre had changed its stated goal of removing black money from the Indian economy to promoting cashless transactions.

“Modi’s blend of disruptive individualism, strongman politics and old-style welfare economics falls back more on the government, rather than less, as the primary vehicle of change,” the journalist said. “’Modinomics’ is not quite the right-of-centre Thatcherite model that many of his supporters may have expected.”

The well-known anchor and reporter had quit her position at NDTV on January 15 to “pursue other interests and work on her own ventures”.