Let India grow at 8-10% for 10 yrs before chest-thumping: Rajan

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ With India trailing China on economic growth post demonetisation, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said the government should not have done “chest-thumping” on being the fastest-growing economy without achieving very strong GDP expansion for 10 years.

In an interview, he said India can lecture the world on things such as culture and history, but on growth, it should do that only after achieving 8-10 per cent rate for 10 years. Rajan, the only central bank governor in two decades who did not get a second term, courted controversy when in April last year he had called rising India a one-eyed king in the land of blind.

BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy had then called for his sacking, saying he was “mentally not fully Indian”. Refusing to comment on Swamy’s remarks, Rajan said his comment was taken out of context.

“Not that I was forecasting anything, I was merely saying we have to be a little cautious about being too bullish about ourselves. That remark was made in April 2016, every quarter since then, our growth has fallen. So, I would argue in hindsight, and I didn’t have any reason to believe that would be the case, but caution was warranted,” he maintained.