May 29, 2024 01:22 PM IST
Raghuram Rajan said, “I got a bunch of threats from business people saying, you know, you better do it otherwise we’ll get you out of your job.”
Raghuram Rajan, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor talked about the challenges he faced at the job, policies he implemented and controversies surrounding his departure. Acknowledging efforts to discredit him, he said, “There’s a sort of campaign to discredit me and what they do is they take phrases out of context and then push it as hard as they can.”
He added, “You know, this has been going on for some time. It went on while I was Governor RBI also. Read the whole even interviews as you well know are sort of cut and so as to try and emphasize the new stuff which tends to be sensational.”
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Talking about his policy decisions, he said, “We were initially raising interest rates to bring inflation down, and a bunch of people who had borrowed a lot suddenly started feeling the pinch. I got a bunch of threats from business people saying, you know, you better do it otherwise we’ll get you out of your job.”
He added, “Sometimes business people have a greater sense of their influence than they actually have… if I succumb to their threats, then I’d be out of a job anyway because I’d be doing my job awfully.”
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Raghuram Rajan pointed out, “We started cleaning up the banking sector and forcing people to repay loans, and that too didn’t go down well. Certain elements clearly were not happy. Business interests have political connections and those political connections then work in their interest silently or explicitly.”
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Reflecting on his contributions to India’s economy, he said, “What I did was the right thing for India. UPI is such a flourishing system now… I feel I played a small part in that. I see branches on all around and I say, well, that’s a bank we gave a license to. I feel happy. The cleanup we started of the banking system has proceeded to the point where the banks by and large have clean balance sheets and can lend as the nation sort of starts growing. I feel very confident and proud of the record we established over that time and I think it’s helped India over the years since.”
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