Karmayogi Raghuram Rajan ignores Subramanian Swamy

RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday said that he shares a “very cordial” relation with the finance minister Arun Jaitley and his long term desire is to go back to the academia.

On BJP MP Subramanian Swamy’s comment that he is “mentally not fully Indian”, Dr Rajan said that “certain allegations are so fundamentally wrong and baseless that to address them is to give them legitimacy that they don’t deserve.”

The RBI governor said that he “welcomes genuine criticism of our policy but will not address ad hominem attacks” or allegations against him as individual, instead of the policies and the position he holds.

On his “Indianness” being questioned in part because he holds a green card, Dr Rajan told a news channel: “Indianness, love for your country is complicated. For every person, there is a different way to show respect for your country... my mother-in-law will say karmayogi is the way to go — do your work (and that reflects your love for the country).”

Dr Rajan said that as the RBI chief he shared a strong working relationship with Mr Jaitley and there never has been a serious disagreement between him and the finance minister.

“It is extremely cordial. Whether its Mr Chidambaram (former finance minister), whether it is secretary to government, whether Mr Jaitley or whether it is anybody else. all conversations are respectful of each other’s position,” he said.

Dr Rajan’s current three-year term as RBI chief is ending this September and there is a speculation whether he will get second extension.

Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had created controversy by suggesting that Dr Rajan should be removed from RBI governorship and had accused him of being responsible for “unemployment and collapse” of industrial activity. Some have started to call risk of Dr Rajan exit as “Rexit”, a play on Britain’s EU referendum.

Dr Rajan said that there is “work to do” before celebrating, though the economy is moving in right direction. He said India is capable of growing at a faster pace, while adding that the “true numbers” of GDP could be one per cent up or down.

“We have some way to go. I am not saying that economy is where it should be. We do have work to do. We can celebrate when we see private investment strongly back on track and I think we are capable of much stronger growth that we have right now,” he said.

On the controversy surrounding the GDP numbers based on new calculations, the RBI governor said statisticians have done as good a job as they can and economic growth is significantly high as costs have come down.