Raghuram Rajan has always made the right choice

Ever wonder why Raghuram Rajan's exit had created such a bad optics for the Modi Government. Why suddenly a mostly back office Sarkari post had created such so many ripples in the media.

At the first glance, Rajan looks like the perfect success story for us. He is a Middle Class aspirations personified. An IIT+MIT+ he was gracious enough NOT to join a private company but worked for academia. Thereafter, he was a patriot enough to come back to serve India at a low salary. He had a choice in life to choose between wealth and goodwill, and he chose the later. He had preferred   Saraswati over  Laxmi unlike the greedy businessmen and corporates in our country.‎ In an era of free markets, Rajan seemed like a fresh air of the socialist value system.

This was the primary reason why a normal Indian was so positively influenced by him. We love self-made men who make sacrifices. So when Rajan's stint was not extended, there was indeed a sense of loss. How can one self made man, Narendra Modi do this to Rajan!!

We had also seen a lot of outrage  by the so called Liberal and Secular intellectuals on Rajan's exit. But alas! the intellectuals' outrage was similarly innocent and honest as of a normal middle class Indian. They knew very well that Indian Central bank is not as influential as in the US, China or Japan. India is still a basic economy and Inflation is still a function of basic variables of demand and supply, rather a very complex structural calculus. Our intellectual class was aware ‎that Rajan couldn't  achieve much on Banking clean up under the UPA regime because of obvious reasons. And he could deliver under NDA primarily because of political support and willingness. Rajan under UPA and NDA were two non-congruent chapters. Also, it is strange that the ‎well-read class had very conveniently forgotten that NDA had deputed ex CAG Vinod Rai in RBI solely to lead an initiative to clean up Banks!

There have been many eminent RBI Governors including Dr Manmohan Singh (strangely he was also denied an extension) but we seldom remember them. We can't name more than a few without seeking help from Google. So was Raghuram Rajan so special that this outrage from Liberals was spontaneous. Or was he being celebrated because he was filling in the space of intellectual opposition to the Modi regime that an array of political leaders and social intellectuals were not able to do. People like Rahul Gandhi, Nitish Kumar, Kejriwal, Aamir Khan or perennial critics like Rajdeep Sardesai et al were not able to dent Modi's image even after a high decibel Intolerance and Award Wapsi campaign.

 

Rajan's exit was making anti-Modi group unnerved. They had hoped that Rajan would continue in the RBI and would keep providing intellectual opposition from within. This outsourced model of political opposition has always been a  strategy of the ideologically bankrupt Congress party.

The Save Rajan campaign was a very dangerous one. To explain it further, let us change the context and suppose that the secular bloc wins in 2019. They will certainly make Rahul Gandhi our PM. That will be hailed as a democratic mandate. And rightly so. The media will call the Gandhi scion, the most eligible bachelor of our country, we will have primetime shows on his cute smile and divine innocence . This will be fair because it's democracy and anyone who wins people's mandate has the right to rule and relish the limelight. 

This is the catch. We are okay if a party thrusts upon a novice dynast as our PM because that party has won the mandate. But a party that has got full majority after many decades must not decide on a RBI Governor of its choice.

 

Rajan was a great RBI chief and he must remain decorated. He had completed his term and  we have bid him a gracious goodbye. He was saved from being diluted as a political ping pong ball.  A lot  changed because Rajan made another choice. He chose grace over grouse like once he had chosen Saraswati over Lakshmi; keeping his super sense of making choices.