By Udaykumar / Arjava Media
RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra
The longest-serving RBI Governor in six and half decades, Shaktikanta Das bows out with laurels – shaming all clumsy narratives that rained on him at the time of his appointment on 12th December 2018. Shaktikanta Das proved RBI hasn’t been under any government pressure. Sanjay Malhotra, the new RBI Governor, faces no clumsy narratives as Urjit Patel and Shaktikanta Das faced during their appointments.
When Shaktikanta Das was appointed the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in December 2018, the maligned minds of politics questioned the conventional polity of appointing the Governor. The blatant attempt to tarnish the image of the government that was then only 27 months old also questioned the appointment of his immediate predecessor, Urjit Patel, who left the post six months prematurely. Someone seemed to have paid heavily to social media platforms to boost the horrendously false narrative that Urjit Patel was the husband of Nita Ambani’s sister. Urjit Patel was unmarried. Some narratives and morality never go together.
Never before in the history of India had anyone heard of any political interest in the appointment of the Governor of RBI. Never before in the history of India an RBI Governor was a puppet in the hand of a disgruntled political party as Raghuram Rajan was. But political frustration did not spare even an apolitical regulatory authority. Shaktikanta Das was the prey of the nasty predators. Social media was agog with memes and trolls on his educational qualification – his MA in economics versus his predecessors’ doctorate and foreign university backgrounds. Das’ civil service background was belittled against his predecessors’ foreign academic merits in a show of a colonial mindset. That was also the result of cheap political intolerance.
Intellectuals watched the acts and scenes of the drama of political frustration. The same frustration, intolerance and colonial mindset re-emerged after Nirmala Sitaraman became Finance Minister nearly six months later. She was compared with the Harvard-educated Finance Minister under the erstwhile UPA regime. Harvard-educated Chidambaram once teased Modi’s blueprint of digital payment. Former Chicago University Professor and former IMF Chief Economist never prevented prowling rats from eating depositors’ money from commercial banks through restructuring outlets. He knew the risks and watched the loan bonanza that peeled off a quarter of all the banks’ assets.
Shaktikanta Das inherited a slowing economy post-demonetisation and GST roll-out. The economic crisis of the pandemic time brought another challenge. The challenges of economic growth, currency stability, and taming of inflation became tougher. Initially, there were concerns about him being an instance of cronyism. But his resoluteness in keeping the interest rate high in an indirect attempt to regulate the possible prodigality of the government dispensed all political prejudice against him. Still, there was no dilution in the old narratives.
Now the steam is out. Shaktikanta Das became the longest-serving RBI Governor after Sir Benegal Ram Rau, who served as RBI Governor for seven and half years – 64 years ago. As he is set to finish his second term he has many laurels with him. Globally recognized as the best central banker twice, Das can boast about India’s digital payment revolution and bringing in banking stability. Antagonists have nothing to shoot when a new governor takes charge and the old one retires. There are no narratives on the new Governor’s relationship and qualifications – like his two immediate predecessors encountered.
