Cash is a ghost. But today, even the ghost is stuck in a digital purgatory.

If you’re staring at a locked glass door in Mumbai or Bengaluru this morning, don't say you weren't warned. It’s February 12, 2026, and the Bharat Bandh has turned the country’s financial nervous system into a series of 404 errors. You wanted to know if the banks are open. The short answer: physically, mostly no; digitally, it’s complicated.

The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) and a handful of other unions decided that today was the day to remind the government that "digital-first" doesn't mean "labor-last." They’re protesting the usual suspects—privatization, the thinning of the pension herd, and the encroaching shadow of AI-driven "operational efficiencies."

While the private sector big shots like HDFC and ICICI are desperately trying to project a "business as usual" vibe, the public sector is a graveyard. Public sector banks (PSBs) are the ones doing the heavy lifting for the millions of people who still think a "cloud" is something that brings rain. Today, those people are out of luck.

Let’s talk about the friction. We’ve been sold this sleek, frictionless vision of the future where money is just a bunch of fluttering bits. But then a strike happens, and you realize the bits are actually managed by guys named Ramesh who haven't had a meaningful raise since the last iPhone was interesting.

The trade-off is glaring. The government wants to lean into the "Viksit Bharat" 2047 dream, where everything is automated and shiny. But the guys behind the counter? They’re watching their job security evaporate into the same ether as your UPI transactions. It’s estimated that this single-day shuttering will stall nearly ₹2.1 trillion in settlements. That’s not a typo. That’s the cost of a collective "not today" from the people who keep the ledgers.

Sure, your UPI app probably still works for that ₹40 chai. But try moving serious capital. Try getting a loan processed or a check cleared. The clearing houses are running on skeleton crews, if at all. It’s a stark reminder that beneath the glossy interface of your banking app lies a labyrinth of human bureaucracy. When the humans walk out, the code starts to sweat.

I spent the morning watching a guy in Delhi try to kick an ATM that hadn't been refilled. The machine was "up," technically. It had power. It had a connection. It just didn't have any paper rectangles to give him. This is the paradox of 2026: we have the tech to move billions in a millisecond, but we can't figure out how to keep the people running it from feeling like they’re being programmed out of existence.

The unions are leaning hard into the anti-privatization narrative. They argue that selling off state banks is a one-way ticket to excluding the very people these banks were built to serve. The government, meanwhile, looks at the balance sheets and sees a legacy system that’s too heavy to fly. It’s a stalemate where the only loser is the person who actually needs to talk to a human being about their mortgage.

Internet banking and mobile apps are ostensibly "on," but don't expect the back-end support to answer the phone. If your transaction gets stuck in the pipe today, it’s going to stay there until the unions get their grievances heard or the sun goes down, whichever comes first. The private banks are keeping their doors cracked open, but they’re playing a dangerous game of PR. They don't want to look like they’re breaking the strike, but they can't afford to stop the clock.

So, are they open?

If you mean "can I walk in and smell the stale air and ink," then no. If you mean "can I scream into the digital void of a chatbot," then yes. But the "void" is particularly empty today.

We keep pretending that we’ve moved past the era of physical labor affecting digital wealth. We haven't. We’ve just buried the pipes deeper. A strike in 2026 isn't about picket lines and megaphones; it’s about the sudden, jarring realization that the "frictionless" economy still runs on meatware. And the meatware is tired.

How long can a "cashless" society function when the people who hold the keys to the vault decide to stay home?