Governor doesn't quite touch the heart of India's economic crisis

The film, centred on the RBI governor during the 1991 balance of payments crisis, fails to offer a 360-degree picture

India’s balance of payments (BoP) crisis of 1991 was one of the gravest economic emergencies in the country’s post-Independence history. It forced the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government to undertake sweeping economic reforms after foreign exchange reserves dwindled to levels sufficient for only a couple of weeks of imports.

 

This economic emergency forms the backdrop of the movie, Governor: The Silent Saviour, directed by Chinmay D Mandlekar. 

 

The film explores the role of S Venkitaramanan, a civil servant and economist who served as the RBI’s 18th governor, from December 1990 to December 1992. While RN Malhotra headed the RBI before the crisis and C Rangarajan oversaw many post-crisis reforms, Venkitaramanan was at the helm of the central bank during the most acute phase of the BoP emergency.

 

Given the technical concepts, such as BoP, foreign exchange reserves, current account deficits, among others, which aren’t easy to translate to the big screen, this would have been a challenging film to make. The story, though, is worth telling, and has been detailed in the first episode of the RBI’s 2025 documentary, RBI Unlocked.

 

Earlier films, such as The Big Short (2015) and Margin Call (2011), both on the subject of the 2008 financial crisis, have also demonstrated that even complex financial events can be presented in a way that is accessible to a wider audience.

 

Governor, however, somewhat falls short of helping viewers understand the economic turmoil of the time, without losing sight of the human and institutional efforts that helped the country navigate it. Rather than present a 360-degree picture, the film appears inclined to hold the Congress governments that preceded the Chandra Shekhar administration significantly responsible for the crisis. In the process, it occasionally leans towards hero worship at the expense of a well-rounded account of the events.

 

The crisis was triggered by a combination of widening fiscal and current account deficits, a surge in oil prices following the Gulf War, disruption in remittances from West Asia, political instability, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of India’s key trading partners, which, perhaps, could have been mentioned in the film in some form. 

 

To be fair, the story is told through the lens of Venkitaramanan — played by Manoj Bajpayee with sincerity, though his performance falls short of the depth and gravitas one has come to expect from an actor of his calibre. 

 

There is no disputing the fact that under Venkitaramanan’s leadership, the RBI managed rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves, arranged emergency financing, facilitated the pledging of gold reserves overseas to raise foreign currency liquidity, and oversaw the two-step devaluation of the rupee in July 1991. However, the film does not devote enough attention to the contributions of several other policymakers, politicians and technocrats who played important roles in helping India to navigate the crisis and lay the groundwork for the economic reforms that followed. 

 

The supporting cast, too, is a mixed bag. Apart from Noushad Mohamed Kunju, who is credible as the deputy governor, the performances from the rest of the ensemble do little to add depth to the narrative. 

 

The film works well when it focuses on dramatising the events surrounding India’s decision to pledge gold in 1991, and the whole episode of how the RBI and its officers managed to send the gold abroad, with only a handful of players knowing about it. 

 

The makers somewhat successfully create the mood of uncertainty of the period — a country staring at an economic crisis, a fragile Chandra Shekhar government surviving on borrowed time, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the political turmoil that followed. Against this backdrop, the RBI under Venkitaramanan remained steadfast in its belief that pledging gold was the most viable way to secure emergency funds. The film presents these developments with enough tension to keep viewers invested in a story the outcome of which is already known. 

 

The subplot involving a journalist, played by Adah Sharma, who gets wind of the operation before the gold leaves Indian shores, also works well. It is one of the devices that keep the film from feeling like a history lesson.

 

However, the recurring “Fathers can’t fail” thread feels somewhat out of place. While it is perhaps intended to humanise Venkitaramanan and show his personal side, the emotional arc never develops enough to leave a lasting impact. More than once, the makers try to establish that Venkitaramanan was a no-nonsense person who did not care for vanity. 

 

The film’s release is aptly timed. India again finds itself confronting economic headwinds, which, while nowhere near as severe as the 1991 balance of payments crisis, bear some resemblance to that turbulent period. 

 

The US-Iran-Israel conflict has disrupted global supply chains, and foreign investors have pulled money out of Indian markets, putting pressure on the rupee and the country’s foreign exchange reserves. In response, the RBI and the government have rolled out a series of measures to stabilise financial markets, support capital inflows and cushion the economy from external shocks.

 

Governor: The Silent Saviour could have offered much more than it does. The story it seeks to tell is inherently compelling and deserved a nuanced treatment. After all, it is centred on an episode that fundamentally altered India’s economic trajectory, paving the way for the shift from a tightly controlled to an open and market-oriented economy. The impact of those reforms continues to shape the country’s economic fortunes more than three decades later.