Comment by Riaz Haq on November 22, 2015 at 9:32am

#India Central Bank Chief Raghu Rajan: #China's economic slowdown hurting #India's economy http://m.thehindu.com/business/Economy/chinas-economic-slowdown-adv... …

China’s pain of economic slowdown is India’s pain too, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said contradicting government assertions that India will not be affected by deceleration of Chinese economy.

“The Chinese slowdown is a concern for the whole world. There is a lower demand for some of our exports to China. But indirectly too, many of the countries are not exporting to China as much as they did and they are buying less from us,” Dr. Rajan said in an interview with Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

“But India being a commodity importer, has been helped a bit by cheaper commodities. So the impact has not been as bad as it could have been. Still, on the whole, we have been adversely affected by the Chinese slowdown because China’s slowdown has impacted global growth and India is very well integrated into the global economy”, Dr. Rajan said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had told a gathering at Columbia University last month that India is “not impacted” by the slowdown as it is not part of Chinese supply chain and India could become the “additional shoulder” the global economy needs to stand on as China slows.

Some comments from India that China’s pain is India’s gain has drawn strong reactions from the Chinese media.

Dr. Rajan was in Hong Kong on Friday to receive honorary doctorate awarded by the Hong University of Science and Technology.

In his interview Dr. Rajan also pointed to “growing interdependence” between India and China.

“The prime minister has clearly laid out a path for improving relations with neighbours. The focus is on the East, rather than the traditional emphasis on the West. Whether it is through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or through China’s Silk Road initiative, we will have greater engagement with China and Chinese projects. This will also feed well into China’s interests in expanding its engagement in the region,” he said.

Dr. Rajan said he hopes India will emulate China’s growth rates and the country would like to learn from things China got right.

“We would like to learn from its manufacturing success, how it built up its infrastructure, how it encouraged its village enterprises and how it manages FDIs in such enormous quantities. A lot of Indian businesspeople who travel to China also keep coming back with stories of why it works better than India”, he said.

“But I also stress we cannot blindly follow the path that China followed as it has already been on that path and has changed some of the conditions. We have to determine which path we follow so that there is room for both of us. Would it, for example, make sense for India to specialise in industries that China has already specialised in? In some cases there is room for both, in some maybe not”, he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 24, 2015 at 1:22pm

Corporate #India suffers debt crisis - http://FT.com http://on.ft.com/1jhn4Yu via @FT

Most Indian companies rely on bank financing, rather than the debt capital market, yet banks are now reluctant to lend even working capital to already stressed borrowers. These debt worries — as well as capacity utilisation of more than 70 per cent — explain why the private sector is not investing and growth remains below potential. “Companies are still way overleveraged while the banks fear throwing good money after bad,” says the head of one foreign bank in Mumbai.
As a result, bond markets can look attractive to cash-strapped corporate bank clients: they can often raise funds more cheaply, while still giving investors higher yields.
But bond markets can be risky for investors who do not do extensive due diligence. Corporate circumstances can deteriorate with little warning and, all too often, the rating agencies — which should be the first to raise the alarm — fail to do so. Liquidity can vanish in a heartbeat.
In spite of the faith in US markets shown by Mr Rajendran, the problem of liquidity is not confined only to India or, indeed, developing markets in general.
One sobering thought is that if two simple bond funds can suddenly restrict withdrawals, what about more complex investment products? Many on both sides of the Pacific have yet to be tested by a lasting bear market.
That test may not be far off. Corporate bond markets in many places are in flux: China seems to have weathered the downdraft in the stock market but there are increasing fears of a bubble in its corporate bonds. Analysts suggest it has been inflated by leverage of up to five times from the commercial banks in Shanghai.
Meanwhile, in the US bond market, yield spreads — how much higher corporate bond yields are, compared with safer government issues — have widened dramatically in recent weeks. Many analysts fear there could soon be a stampede for the exit, as worries over a Federal Reserve rate increase in December intensify. That would test the liquidity of US high-yield bond funds and exchange traded funds.
Some funds will not be able to survive a sell-off without imposing limits on redemptions. For example, there are leveraged loan ETFs in the US promising instant liquidity, even though it takes a minimum of 20 days for deals in this debt to settle.
In corporate bond markets, the distinction between developing markets such as India and developed markets such as the US may not be as great as some believe.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 6, 2015 at 9:51am

Rising #intolerance in #India . #NarendraModi Is Running Out of Time to Reform the Indian Economy http://www.newsweek.com/narendra-modi-running-out-time-reform-india... …

Popular Bollywood star Aamir Khan brought the issue to India’s mainstream when last month he criticized the sense of “insecurity and fear” felt even by his own family. The harsh response to him only reinforced Khan’s point.

Sectarian violence does more than harm innocent Indians. It also discourages foreign investment. Religious intolerance provides skittish investors with another reason to put their money elsewhere.

More state elections are pending. To win, the BJP should focus on economics, which is what boosted Modi and his party to last year’s overwhelming victory. With an expanding population, India needs strong economic growth to move people out of poverty. The Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha, said India needs at least eight percent growth annually for decades to provide sufficient jobs.

This kind of progress isn’t easy or common. Yet India’s current growth rate, around seven percent so far this year, suggests that India could take off after sustained, real economic reform.

As I wrote for Forbes: “Despite the recent challenges to his government, Modi retains a rare opportunity to advance his nation. Moreover, given his Hindu nationalist background, Modi also is well-positioned to reinforce tolerance and secularism in government.

“Doing so would promote domestic stability in a nation with tens of millions of people of different religious faiths, strengthen economic growth by encouraging foreign investment, and enhance India’s international influence.”

Will the 21st century be another American Century, the Chinese Century, or something else? If Prime Minister Modi makes tough decisions in leading his country forward, the 21st century might end up being the Indian Century. But if so, he can’t delay much longer in putting his words into action.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 25, 2016 at 7:35pm

Economist Amartya Sen: "Never been optimistic about #India. But today, I'm more pessimistic" #Modi #BJP

http://qz.com/601769 via @qzindia


From Davos to New Delhi, prime minister Narendra Modi and his government are trying hard to sell the story of India’s revival. But Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has scarcely been more pessimistic about the state of the nation.
At an evening session of the Kolkata Literary Meet on Jan. 23, the 82-year-old Harvard University professor was asked if and when he had felt the most optimistic in the decades of observing India’s policies on education, the agency of women, and healthcare.
“I don’t think I’ve felt optimistic at any time,” Sen replied chortling, as the audience of a few hundreds chuckled briefly.
His early years during India’s colonial occupation, he explained, were no reason for optimism, although there was much hope that Independence would turn the situation around. “Then came Nehru’s speech at midnight, and we were going to do great things in education and healthcare,” Sen said. “That remained the rhetoric, and is still today the rhetoric.”


“You said that schools have expanded…” Sen said, turning to Harvard University historian and Trinamool Congress member of parliament, Sugata Bose, who was in conversation with the economist on stage. “They have expanded but still there are many schools with one teacher, which is very difficult…”
Bose helpfully recalled the “savage cuts” in primary education under the Modi government. Indeed, in the first full budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley last year, the government cut back on the country’s education budget by 16%, with a 10% reduction in planned outlay to the school sector. Alongside, the government’s spending on health dropped by 15%.
“What I didn’t recognise,” Sen continued, “I feared it might be worse (but) I didn’t recognise, what Sugata (Bose) referred to just now, how big and savage the cuts in an already very low budget would have been.”
“China spends 3% of its income on healthcare,” he explained. “We spend less than 1% and most of it goes in a peculiar way like RSBY (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana), which is totally counterproductive. You subsidise private hospitals with it when you have expensive treatment but you don’t do the basic public services in healthcare…”

“So I never was very optimistic, but am I more pessimistic right now? Ya.”
Another round of muffled laughter followed.
This isn’t the first time that Sen has expressed concern on India’s renewed attempts to push for higher economic growth without first improving its education and healthcare systems. In an interview last November at the London School of Economics, Sen had explained:
India is the only country in the world which is trying to become a global economic power with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force. It’s never been done before, and never will be done in the future either…
…India is trying to be different from America, Europe, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, China—all of them. This is not a good way of thinking of economics. So foundationally, the government’s understanding of development underlying their approach is mistaken. Having said that, the previous government was terribly mistaken, too. But one hoped there might be a change, and there has been, but not for the better. All the sins of the past government have been added up.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 27, 2016 at 10:40pm

Intolerance and despotism are undermining #Modi’s reforms in #India. #BJP #Hindu http://www.newsweek.com/intolerance-despotism-undermine-modi-reform... …

This article first appeared on the Riding the Elephant site.

“Misinterpreting nationalism—BJP’s swing to jingoism does not augur well,” said a headline earlier this week in the Business Standard, one of India’s leading newspapers. It reflected concern in India and abroad over what the paper called the governing BJP’s “disturbing drift towards hyper-nationalism.”

The only word slightly wrong there is “drift,” because there is a growing suspicion among observers that this is not some gradual meandering, but a determination to develop divisive politics, driven for vote-catching reasons by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, notably Amit Shah, the party’s hard-line president, Rajnath Singh, the government’s rather stern looking home minister, aided occasionally by Smriti Irani, the voluble minister for human resource development.


The latest example of their drive has come with a strident demand for people to prove their patriotism by declaring “Bharat Mata Ki Jai,” which means “Victory to Mother India” (or the motherland).

Originally triggered a couple of weeks ago when a Muslim member of a regional assembly refused to recite the line, this is really a non-issue because a wide spectrum of the population (including Muslims) have no problem with saying it (nor with others not saying it), though many would prefer the conventional “Jai Hind” which means “Praise be to India.” It is also the slogan used by the Indian army.

Narendra Modi, the prime minister, has led chanting of the Bharat Mata slogan at his big overseas Indians’ rallies in places like London’s Wembley Stadium, and this could have been a harmless debate until Shah and others said that not chanting it was “anti-national.” After a week of growing controversy that dominated the media, a meeting of the BJP’s national executive last weekend passed a resolution that said, “Refusal to chant victory to Bharat is tantamount to disrespect to our Constitution itself.”

The BJP ministers seem to believe that polarizing opinion around such Hindu-driven nationalism, especially the word Bharat (Hindi for India), will be a vote winner for various assembly elections next month, followed by a key election in Uttar Pradesh state next year and then the next general election that is due in 2019. For them, even opposition to the government is anti-national.

Modi presumably agrees, though he and they know that the BJP won the general election almost two years ago because of his image as a leader who would bring development and efficient government, not rampant nationalism. The BJP has lost key state elections in Bihar and Delhi in the past 15 months because Modi and others pushed the nationalist anti-Muslim agenda, but that has not deterred the hard-liners.

Modi and Development

Modi is now stressing development. “Vikas, vikas, vikas [development] is my only focus and it is our country’s solution to all problems,” he said at the party’s executive meeting. He does not, however, seem to have tried to rein in Shah and the others, so maybe he and Shah will each run their own lines so as to broaden the party’s appeal to voters.

That gels with reports that the RSS, the BJP’s ideology-driven parent organization that steers the behavior of the party’s leaders and government ministers, wants development to be included in the message. (The RSS has also recently softened its image by replacing its uniform of khaki shorts with long trousers.) Arun Jaitley, the government chief spokesman and finance minister, said last weekend that both nationalism and development could proceed together—which is, of course, correct if the nationalist angle is not turned into social divisiveness.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 15, 2016 at 4:03pm

Two years on, Narendra #Modi "hasn't achieved anything yet" as he struggles to realize #India’s dreams. #BJP

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/15/two-years-on-narendra-modi-struggles...

Narendra Modi's sweeping victory in the May 2014 Indian general election prompted jubilation among his Hindu supporters in Varanasi, the northern city on the Ganges he had chosen as his parliamentary seat.

The energetic leader of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata party seemed to usher in a radical change from the sclerotic Congress government he had deposed, promising jobs for the young, toilets for the poor and economic reforms for investors and entrepreneurs.

Two years on, and even Mr Modi's supporters in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, are beginning to wonder if the prime minister will be able to achieve half of what he has pledged — whether the target is a clean-up of the polluted Gangesor the revival of Indian manufacturing.

"Modi's a realist," says one retired banker in Varanasi, "but he hasn't achieved anything yet. People say he needs more time."

Higher up the Ganges in Kanpur, the industrial city once known as the Manchester of India, business leaders say the erratic supply of electricity has improved slightly. But there are few new jobs for the 1m or so young Indians who enter the workforce each month: lack of power, the difficulty of acquiring land, restrictive labour laws and constant interference by bureaucratic and corrupt government inspectors have made sure of that.

P. Chidambaram, a Congress leader and former finance minister, says the government is "on a dangerous path" of promoting polarisation, while the BJP's Arun Shourie, a disenchanted former confidant of Mr Modi, laments the "intimidation and silencing" of the government's critics.

Yet the principal complaint about Mr Modi is not that he is a domineering Hindu puritan but that he has failed to do much for economic development.

"His concept of development is a few large, shining and conspicuous projects," says Mr Shourie, referring to such Modi-led campaigns as "Make in India" and "Digital India". Or, as Mr Chidambaram puts it: "Where are the jobs?"

Business leaders say it is unfair to suggest that nothing has been achieved, although few of them would agree with Jayant Sinha, minister of state for finance and a former McKinsey partner, when he says "we are fundamentally changing the nature of Indian capitalism" to help entrepreneurs.

----

Mr Modi also faces intense resistance to change from Indian bureaucrats and is undermined by ineffective cabinet ministers he seems unwilling to sack. He sometimes finds his initiatives blocked by state governments — such as that of Uttar Pradesh — controlled by parties other than the BJP. Banks are constrained from new lending by a mountain of bad loans for infrastructure and industry dating back to previous administrations.

Priyankar Upadhyaya, a political scientist at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, says Mr Modi "desperately" wants economic development and finds himself stuck in a "trap of expectations" set by hopeful voters.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 8, 2016 at 11:11am

Foreign diplomats livid over #India's cash crisis as #Modi "wins" friends with #Demonitization http://cnnmon.ie/2h6VGN1 via @CNNMoney

http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/08/news/india/india-cash-crisis-embass...

India's cash shortage has left foreign diplomats in the country fuming.
Multiple embassies have lodged protests with the Indian government over a cap on bank withdrawals that was implemented after India suddenly banned all 500 and 1,000 rupee notes a month ago. The move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was designed to fight corruption and tax evasion, has resulted in massive lines at banks and ATMs.
Russian diplomats have been among the most vocal critics. Local media reported earlier this week that Ambassador Alexander Kadakin sent a letter to India's foreign ministry that said the maximum weekly withdrawal limit of 50,000 rupees ($740) was "totally inadequate" to meet the embassy's salary requirements and other expenses.
Kadakin said that if the issue isn't resolved quickly, "we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your Embassy." A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in New Delhi confirmed that such a letter had been sent, but declined to disclose its contents.

The wider diplomatic community has also raised the issue with Indian officials. Frank Castellanos, the Dominican Republic's ambassador and the dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in India, met on Thursday with Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
"The concerns are the same concerns ... that the whole population of India is facing, with the difference that this is international money," Castellanos said. "This is diplomatic protected money that we cannot access."
Vikas Swarup, a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said his department had a "very detailed discussion" with Castellanos on "issues that diplomatic missions are facing" and what the government can do to "minimize the inconvenience."
Swarup said he would consult with the finance ministry to see if the withdrawal limit could be raised for diplomats.
"The vast majority of foreign missions understand that the demonetization exercise is being conducted to combat the menace of black money and tax avoidance," he told reporters on Thursday.
Related: India's cash crisis could kill its economic boom
Other countries have written to the government separately, including India's neighborhood rival Pakistan.
The Pakistan High Commission said its diplomats had been stopped from withdrawing their salaries — paid in U.S. dollars — by their bank in New Delhi. Before they could access the funds, they were asked to submit a letter declaring the purpose of their withdrawal.
"We were trying to abide by the instructions of the [Indian] government, but this is in addition to that," said Pakistan High Commission spokesperson Manzoor Ali, who said his colleagues were able to meet last week with representatives of India's foreign ministry.
"The government has given us assurance that the problem will be solved. Let us see," he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 17, 2019 at 10:30am

Global #investors have lost faith in Modinomics...just another name for #Hindutva voodoo economics. #Modi euphoria gone, foreign investors dump record $4.5 billion of #Indian shares in 3 months https://theprint.in/economy/modi-euphoria-gone-foreign-investors-du... via @ThePrintIndia

After pouring $45 billion into India’s stock market over the past six years on hopes that Modi would unleash the country’s economic potential, international money managers are now unwinding those wagers at the fastest pace on record. They’ve sold $4.5 billion of Indian shares since June, on course for the biggest quarterly exodus since at least 1999.

“The euphoria around Modi before 2014 has tapered off,” said Salman Ahmed, the London-based chief investment strategist at Lombard Odier Investment Managers, which oversees about $52 billion.

It’s hard to fault investors for losing faith. India’s economic growth has decelerated for five straight quarters to the weakest level since early 2013, one year before Modi became prime minister. And the 5% headline number for the second quarter may actually understate how painful the slowdown has become. Car sales are sinking at the fastest pace on record, capital investment has plunged, the unemployment rate has surged to a 45-year-high and the nation’s banking system is hamstrung by the world’s worst bad-loan ratio. Monday’s oil-price spike adds yet another headwind for a country that imports most of its crude.

While Modi isn’t sitting idly by as the economy weakens, investors say he’s been slow to act on a long list of needed reforms that includes selling stakes in state-owned companies and revamping the nation’s labor laws. The growing worry is that India could be headed for a structural slowdown that pummels the country’s $2 trillion stock market, throws a wrench into growth plans of international companies from Amazon.com Inc. to Netflix Inc., and makes it increasingly difficult for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to deliver jobs for the millions of young Indians who enter the workforce every year.

Subramanian Swamy, a BJP lawmaker, spoke bluntly about the risks of inaction in an interview with BloombergQuint published Sept. 5: “If the economy is not rectified, Modi has about six more months till people start challenging him.”

Representatives from the prime minister’s office, finance ministry and BJP didn’t respond to requests for comment. India is an attractive investment destination, offering a massive market as well as local talent, political stability and a corruption-free, reform-oriented government, Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at an industry event on Monday.

While many of India’s problems pre-date Modi, critics say his handling of the economy has been disappointing. His 2016 decision to invalidate 86% of the country’s currency in circulation is widely regarded as a growth-sapping boondoggle, and his 2017 goods and services tax reform — passed with bipartisan support — has since been panned as far too complicated. Modi’s early attempts to simplify land and labor laws were reversed in the face of social and political opposition.

-------------------

Even some long-term Modi supporters aren’t sure he will deliver. Jefferies Financial Group Inc.’s Christopher Wood, author of the widely followed “Greed & Fear” investment strategy report, cut his recommended exposure to Indian stocks on Aug. 22 and advised buying Indonesian equities, writing that he’s “not so sure what Modi can do about the economy in the short term.” As recently as May, Wood had called Modi the “most pro-growth leader in the world.”

The MSCI India Index has dropped 9% from its all-time high in August 2018, cutting the gauge’s longstanding valuation premium over the MSCI All-Country World Index to the narrowest level since 2004. The Indian gauge now has a price-to-book ratio of 2.5, or 13% higher than the global measure. When Modi entered office, the premium was nearly 30%.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 24, 2021 at 6:25pm

#Hindu nationalists turn their sights on #India’s corporate titans. #Tech giant #Infosys accused of being “anti-National” . Accusations of companies are undermining India are unlikely to help attract much-needed #investment. #Modi #BJP | Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/d5530ac7-52d6-42b6-a2d4-7b28e8e21059


Infosys, the IT services company, has long been venerated as a symbol of a rising India.

The pioneering tech outsourcer was the first Indian company to list on the Nasdaq and became emblematic of the entrepreneurial energies and tech prowess of an aspirational nation seeking global recognition. The original founders, now billionaires, are investing in India’s next generation of dynamic tech companies and mentoring young entrepreneurs aiming to follow their trailblazing path

Given the company’s stature, many took note this month when it was accused of being “anti-national” and deliberately undermining India by Panchajanya, the Hindi-language magazine of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party.

The four-page tirade was ostensibly triggered by Infosys’ upgrade of India’s income tax portal, a $573m overhaul that was supposed to make it easier for Indians to file their income tax returns. Instead it has been riddled with glitches, which Infosys has struggled to fix since its June launch.

Taxpayers, and the government, are rightly frustrated. Nirmala Sitharaman, finance minister, has twice summoned Infosys chief executive Salil Parekh to urge a rapid remediation. The tax department has had to extend this year’s deadline for filing tax returns from the usual July 31 to December 31.

But Panchajanya did not merely attack Infosys for doing a shoddy job. Instead, the magazine — seen as a mouthpiece for the Hindu nationalist movement — accused the tech firm of deliberate conspiracy to undermine the Modi government, and India itself.

“There are allegations that the Infosys management is trying to deliberately trying to destabilise the economy. Could it be that anti-India forces are trying to harm India’s economic interests through Infosys,” the article posited. “Given the history and circumstances of the company, there seems to be an element of truth in the allegations.”

As evidence of the company’s supposedly shady conduct, the magazine then made a not so oblique reference to several independent news and fact checking websites funded by the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, a Bangalore-based philanthropic fund set up in 2015 to support public interest journalism. Among donors are several prominent tech titans, including the family of Infosys founder Nandan Nilekani.

“Infosys has been accused of aiding Naxalites, leftists and the ‘tukde tukde’ gang, (that wants to divide the country)” the magazine said, echoing the insults hurled by the BJP’s most combative politicians against government critics.

“Should a company of such dubious character be allowed to participate in a government tendering process?” it asked.

----

The normally staid annual conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry was jolted last month when commerce minister Piyush Goyal launched a tirade against corporate India, repeatedly singling out the 153-year-old Tata Group.

Though the video was briefly available on the CII’s YouTube channel, it was later taken down under instructions from the government. Tata has made no public comments on the episode.

Over the past decade private investment in India has been muted, say economists, and the economy was slowing down sharply even before Covid-19 hit. New Delhi is now eager to accelerate growth and is trying hard to portray itself as an attractive place to do business.

Overt bullying and hurling insults of treachery has in recent years enabled the BJP to intimidate its opponents, stifle criticism and mute policy debate. But such tactics may not encourage industries to open their wallets and invest.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 4, 2022 at 8:34am

#India sought probe into ex-RBI gov Raghu Rajan (now Professor at #University of #Chicago) for helping ‘white man’. #Modi government accused its #RBI of setting interest rates to favor developed nations, pushing it to slash the rates.

https://aje.io/c3ant4 via @AJEnglish

A year after the government led by Narendra Modi’s BJP came to power in 2014, the top finance ministry official accused the Reserve Bank of India of setting interest rates to benefit developed countries and sought a probe into its conduct, a trove of official documents obtained by The Reporters’ Collective reveals.

Finance secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, working under the then-finance minister, the late Arun Jaitley, made the claim after the RBI opted to prioritise controlling rising prices over lowering interest rates, which would have made borrowing cheaper for businesses and citizens.

Although the government and the RBI having different views is not unusual, the revelations mark the first time a top government official has accused the RBI of working to benefit “the white man” in “developed countries” and sought an investigation into the “real purpose” behind the central bank’s decisions.

The documents, which were accessed by The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) under the Right to Information Act, are being made public for the first time as part of a three-part investigative series.

At the time in 2015, the RBI governor was Raghuram Rajan, an appointee of the previous, Congress-led government. The BJP government chose Urjit Patel as Rajan’s successor.

But the RBI didn’t cut the interest as sharply as the government wanted, even under Patel. So the finance ministry called a meeting with the bank’s newly set up monetary policy committee (MPC) to push it to cut interest rates, according to the documents. The unprecedented meeting fell through when committee members declined to attend, a development widely reported in 2017.

The attempt to influence the central bank came despite the Modi government having amended the Reserve Bank of India Act in 2016 to strengthen the firewall between the RBI’s primary function of controlling prices and the government’s political impulse to spur growth even at the cost of rising inflation.

The RBI’s then-governor Patel pushed back, wrote to the government saying it should stop trying to influence the RBI in order to preserve the “integrity and credibility” of the new monetary framework “in the public eye and our parliament”. Otherwise, the government would be in violation of the letter and spirit of the law that protected the RBI’s independence.

As disagreements piled up on this and other issues, Patel resigned on December 10, 2018, citing “personal reasons”. The government replaced him with Shaktikanta Das who, as a top finance ministry bureaucrat, had justified increasing the government’s influence in the RBI’s rate-setting function, official documents reveal.

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