India no longer ridiculed for 'Hindu rate of growth': Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the world no longer ridicules India about its "Hindu rate of growth", and now continuing with its reform path, the country is likely "to write a new chapter in history".

"Right till about 40 years after independence, India was growing at about paltry 2-2.5 percent. The world was ridiculing us and the Indian economy, and its growth was referred to globally as the Hindu rate of growth. So, anybody who grew slowly and was satisfied with that growth level was sarcastically referred to as Hindu rate of growth," Jaitley said at an event in here.

It was only after economic liberalisation in 1991 that India's growth picked up momentum, even crossing the 10 percent mark in some years during the first decade of this century.

"1991 was a defining moment for India. It was India's misfortune that what happened in 1991 should have started 20 years before. Had it started 20 years earlier, the 1970-80s would not have been the wasted decades as far as the Indian economy is concerned," he said.

"If we continue to follow the reforms path, we will probably be able to write a new chapter in that history," he added.