THIS is the true colour of Dr. Raghuram Rajan -- political, and tinted by bias. For record, he is an economist of world renown and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He also served as the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund. But, on practical grounds, he is a man beset with political bias that he displayed on several occasions even as the RBI Governor and afterwards. Recently, Dr. Raghuram Rajan joined Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi on his Bharat Jodo Yatra and took a clear political stand. And now has come this statement of his demonstrating an extremely tilted political opinion on the Indian economy, crowing it with the statement that the country has come “dangerously close to the Hindu rate of growth”. This opinion has no basis except Dr. Rajan’s personal bias, his so-called knowledge of the global economics notwithstanding. He should have felt a sense of shame while making a flippant statement like this one. He should have realised that he was once the Governor of India’s central bank. Instead of that, he seems to bask in his ideological bias that makes him a partisan thinker completely devoid of the awareness of new India’s new economic surge. He appears happy taking blond pot-shots at the current state of economic affairs in India. In this manner, Dr. Rajan is defying his own scholarship most thoughtlessly.

His bias is two-fold, so to say. One, it is against the current economic positivism that is enlivening India for the past some years -- since the advent of Mr. Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. And two, he makes a derogatory reference to ‘Hindu rate of growth’. In the second part of the bias, he has only adhered to the phrase that many so-called liberal economists loved to use some years ago denigrating the condition of the Indian economy when Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee was Prime Minister for as many as six years. In those days, a lobby of Opposition leaders and so-called liberals used the phrase ‘Hindu rate of growth’ suggesting low or no growth, suggesting archaic approach to economy, suggesting a political failure in handling the economy correctly. Dr. Raghuram Rajan, thus, has exposed his true colours that actually deny him the right to make comments about the current state of the Indian economy.

‘Hindu rate’! Bah!

But these people, Dr. Rajan and others, have turned a deliberate blind eye to the reality of today’s economic upsurge in India. They have blind-folded themselves from the glorious growth India has recorded in the past 8-9 years -- despite the Covid pandemic, despite global recessionary trend, despite a near war-like condition on the border with China, despite Russia-Ukraine war that is taking a heavy toll of the global economic order, and most importantly, despite the huge NPAs (non-performing assets) created during Dr, Raghuram Rajan’s tenure as RBI Governor! This blind-folding themselves is, of course, politically motivated, and intended to bring a bad name to the country in the international arena.

This scribe has a strong objection to the usage ‘Hindu rate of growth’. For, those who use this term do not know what Hindu means and what the word denotes in multiple ways. Hindu economics, which may also be called ‘Sanatan’ economics is a wholesome treatise -- wisdom -- that considers sharing and usage of god-resources as sacrosanct to be preserved for the posterity. For, it denies the Western one-life theorem in totality. For, that approach encourages humans to use up whatever resources they have and offer no thought to future. The sanatan economics does not depend its calculations on the ramping up the GDP quotient by sucking up the very essence of what Nature offers. It lays emphasis on preservation and conservation of resources for the future -- much beyond the linguistic lip service today’s so-called modern economists like Dr. Raghuram Rajan do. It is a shame, thus, that Dr. Rajan chooses to use the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ in a derogatory manner. He is a man who needs to be shamed and condemned in unequivocal terms. Dr. Raghuram Rajan’s only plus point is his western education and connection. He is fashionable and with western polish. But these virtues do not make him a great economist. On practical grounds, he is one of the most mediocre professors of economics at an American university. He was sucked up in the Indian system sheerly for his political utility. And in that position, he did not do any good worth the name. Much to the contrary, he gifted the country with unprecedented NPAs. And such a man is blaming the current state of Indian economy by using a derogatory term. Shame on him!