Has the time come for critics of demonetisation to qualify their criticism of the decision, and limit it mostly to its operational mishandling? Such a stance is prompted by the numbers in the finance minister’s Budget speech, which suggest that an astonishing 40 per cent of the high-value notes deposited with banks may have represented unaccounted wealth.

Such a figure is much larger than almost all the initial assessments made in the wake of Mr Modi’s televised announcement three months ago. What Mr Jaitley has disclosed is that Rs 4.9 lakh crore (148,000 bank accounts, with an ...