'Parachute Economist': Raghuram Rajan Receives Flak Over His Remarks On India's Growth

Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has called India believing the hype around its strong economic growth ‘the greatest mistake’. (File Photo/PTI)

After Raghuram Rajan called India believing the “hype” around its strong economic growth ‘the greatest mistake’ and said there are significant structural problems that needs to be fixed, the former RBI governor has now come under fire.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the 61-year-old economist has said, “We’ve got many more years of hard work to do to ensure the hype is real. Believing the hype is something politicians want you to believe because they want you to believe that we have arrived.” But it would be a “serious mistake for India to succumb to that belief,” Rajan added.

He also said it is unlikely that India will not be a developed economy by 2047 adding that it would be “nonsense” to talk of that goal “if so many of your kids don’t have a high school education and drop-out rates remain high”.

The remarks by Rajan attracted sharp comments from experts.

Mohandas Pai, chairperson of Manipal Global Education, in a post on X said, “Silly arguments by RR (Raghuram Rajan), school dropout rates are down, college enrolment increased, huge jobs created, Wrong comparison about chil subsidy given over many years, to annual spend on HE.”

NITI Aayog member and economist Arvind Virmani also said Raghuram Rajan’s comments seemed like those made by global experts who have never been to India.

“During the 1990s BOP crisis, we used to have a word for visiting WB, IMF and other MDB economists: ‘Parachute economists’. Sad that a former RBI Governor sounds like that to someone who has worked on Indian economy for 1/2 a century,” Virmani said in a post on X.