Midway through his prime ministership, Narendra Modi has made his first blunder, the botched exchange of high-value currency notes for new. But the remarkable point to note, politically, is that so many people have said (at least in the initial days) that they are willing to live with the inconvenience and dislocation, since it is in a good cause: attacking the black economy.

This is one more example of Mr Modi’s ability to get the country to accept the narrative that he spins out. Weeks earlier, much of the country had bought another Modi narrative, as he successfully diverted ...