If there is an opportunity to be of use, I will always be there,” said former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan at the launch of his book The Third Pillar in Delhi last week. That’s as good as confirming rumours that the celebrated economist would love to be made the finance minister of a non-BJP government.
Adding grist to the mill is the admission that he advised the Congress party on its proposed Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) to eradicate poverty. He does insist he has no political ambitions, he’s only an academic, but doesn’t deny the rumours either.
It’s clear by now that Raghuram Rajan wouldn’t mind being a ‘technocrat’ who is politically appointed to a top position to give direction to the Indian economy. That is a welcome thought, given that he’s a globally celebrated economist, and someone who comes across as balanced and persuasive.
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Yet, there’s something tiresome about this annual ritual of Raghuram Rajan doing a book launch and 50 interviews in a day and coyly denying his political ambitions in a way that only furthers them. In other words, Raghuram Rajan has become a political tourist.
There’s no dearth of political tourists in the Congress party who want to be made ministers through the Rajya Sabha when the Congress is in power and then go back to their non-political professional pursuits when the party is out of power.
Liberals can’t stop swooning over RRR, but it has to be said that he could have done a lot more for India, and a lot better. By now, we can see that this has been a lost decade for the Indian economy. The politics of this country has come in the way of India’s ambition to realise its economic potential. To fix the economy, it is the politics that has to be fixed.
The best lack all conviction
Raghuram Rajan is no ordinary economist, and he’s no ordinary ex-RBI chief. How many former Reserve Bank of India governors do most people remember? And, he was an extra-ordinary RBI governor, flagging bank frauds and the non-performing assets mess early on. He refused to buckle under pressure to cut interest rates because he rightly pointed out that the problem in credit flow was due to the NPA mess, not interest rates, and that the RBI had a responsibility to keep inflation in check.
When Raghuram Rajan took over as the RBI governor amidst economic gloom in 2013, a newspaper drew a graphic showing him as James Bond. The accompanying headline read: “The man who predicted world’s future set out to correct India’s present”.
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Precisely because Raghuram Rajan is a bit of a rockstar, he could have done a lot more to shape India’s public debate since he left office in September 2016.
RRR could have gone around India’s colleges and think tanks, its lit fests and seminars, making a case for a new imagination of Indian politics and economics. He could have done this with or without joining Indian politics. But he wants the easy way out. A book a year doesn’t let us forget him, and like manna from heaven, the finance minister’s job will one day fall in his lap.
The best lack all conviction, wrote Yeats, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. That is sadly the state of India’s public debate today. Raghuram Rajan has the enviable quality of giving us hope. He gives you the impression of a person who can make sense. That is a rarity in Indian public life today, and that is why we need much more of Raghuram Rajan than one interview jamboree a year.
The missing hero
He doesn’t have to do it, one might argue. He’s an academic, he says, not a politician. He’s even said his wife prohibits him from joining politics, leaving open to interpretation whether or not he would like to do it.
Perhaps Raghuram Rajan doesn’t want to be a finance minister. Perhaps it’s just a Delhi rumour. Perhaps it’s just a way his Hindutva detractors have found to delegitimise his independent criticism of the Narendra Modi government.
Yet, it is Rajan himself who doesn’t categorically deny that aspiration and instead says he’s available if opportunities come his way. The finance minister’s job, even presuming that someone will offer it to him, is a political job. It should be earned through mass politics, not intellectual entitlement. It is the Rajya Sabha-types who brought down the Congress house in UPA-2. The Congress may have talent, but in a democracy, it needs public approval. (Modi has public approval but a stark absence of talent in his cabinet.)
Raghuram Rajan was curiously more critical of the Modi government when he was heading the RBI, at one point even using a Hitler analogy. Be that as it may, Raghuram Rajan as a mass phenomenon in India could have helped provide a positive counterpoint. His appeal may be limited to urban India, but urban India is the BJP’s core base. If Raghuram Rajan were to give up his squeamishness about mass political engagement, he could take away the IIT-IIM types from Modi. Overnight the rug would be pulled out from the under the BJP. Indeed, Raghuram Rajan could be the answer to “Aur hai kaun? (Who’s the alternative to Modi?)”
Also read: Modi’s cash plan better than farm loan waivers for short-term relief, says Raghuram Rajan
Raghuram Govind Rajan has the right to live his life the way he wants, continue being the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, chasing academic laurels, engaging with the Indian public through books and interviews. But this is not qualification enough to be the finance minister of India. His liberal fans and the opposition parties should be clear with him about this: come and earn it.