What next?

A CRACK of the whip was all that was needed. The dollar, which had lately been racing to a new high each day, has now reversed course thanks to an army-sanctioned operation against hoarders and black marketeers. Local media reports that confidence in the rupee has strengthened and that now there are more sellers than buyers in the market. Meanwhile, social media has been flush with accounts of unscrupulous elements being arrested with breathtaking stashes of foreign currencies, which have subsequently been confiscated by the state. It remains difficult to sift truth from fiction, however: after all, the state has not shared how this crackdown was planned and executed, who was targeted, and precisely what role the suspects arrested so far played in manipulating the exchange rate. While the sharp improvement in exchange rates cannot be denied, the citizenry also deserves to know how and why the market was rigged in the first place.