RBI governor says 'one-eyed' phrase taken out of context

Says intent was to signal that India's outperformance was accentuated due to low global growth; apologises for hurting sentiments of visually impaired

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday said his ‘one-eyed king’ comment to describe India’s outperformance relative to other countries, was taken out of context and warned that the nation should not be complacent in its growth story just as yet. 

When I used the popular phrase ‘Andhon main Kana Raja’ in my interview, my intent was to signal that our outperformance was accentuated because of low global growth,” Rajan said in his address at the 12th convocation address at National Institute of Bank Management, Pune. A portion of his speech was televised. 

“When a public persona says something, his words are intensely wrung out for meaning,” Rajan said, adding the spoken words, especially phrases become a fair game for the media and others to interpret as they liked. “Worst of course, are proverbs.” 

“If we are to have a reasonable public dialogue, we must not take words out of context,” Rajan said. Still, he apologised for his words if it hurt anybody’s sentiments. “I am indeed sorry.”

Rajan’s comment, spoken casually, had stirred a hornet’s nest as central ministers, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley took exceptions to the statement. Jaitley said he didn’t agree with Rajan’s assessment and later said that India could grow at 8-8.5 per cent from the projected 7.5 per cent, if the monsoon rainfall was at 106 per cent of its long term average as predicted by the weather office. 

Rajan said that the country has a long way to go before it can flaunt its success.

“The Chinese economy, smaller than us in the 1960s is now five times our size. The average Chinese citizen is over four times richer than the average Indian. We have a long way to go before we can claim to have arrived," he said.

“We have a long way to go before we can claim we have arrived. We need to repeat this performance for 20 years before we can give each Indian a decent livelihood,” Rajan said in his speech, adding, India’s international reputation hold great promise but is seen as a country that has “underdelivered,” and that the country should “implement, implement, and implement” structural reforms measures. Speaking before him, Vinod Rai, former CAG and chairman of the Bank Board Bureau had said in his keynote speech that India needed to urgently implement structural reforms to move forward on a sustainable growth path.   

EARLIER STATEMENTS BY RAJAN THAT SET TONGUES WAGGING

About Adolf Hitler's efficient government
“His (Hitler’s) was a strong government, but Hitler took Germany efficiently and determinedly on a path to ruin, overriding the rule of law and dispensing with elections. It is not sufficient that the trains run on time, they have to go in the right direction at the desired time”
(Speech titled “Democracy, Inclusion, and Prosperity”, at D D Kosambi ideas Festival on February 20, 2015 in Goa)

Coming hard on Indian way of working around system
"Jugaad or working around difficulties by hook or by crook is a thoroughly Indian way of coping but it is predicated on a difficult or impossible business environment. It encourages an attitude of short cuts and evasions, none of which help final product quality or sustainable economic growth.”
(CK Prahalad Memorial lecture on September 18, 2015, in Mumbai)