The Timeline of Doom
Raghuram Rajan, the ex governor of Reserve Bank of India has one setting. Gloomy.
He left India in 2016 but never stopped lecturing from his Chicago perch. Every few months, like clockwork, another warning. Another prediction of collapse. Another reason why India’s doing it all wrong.
2015: Focus on services, forget manufacturing.
2019: Growth recession. Deep malaise. Too much centralization in the PM’s Office.
March 2023: Dangerously close to Hindu rate of growth.
December 2023: Lucky to get 5% growth. India is growing because it’s poor.
March 2024: Big mistake believing the hype. Significant structural problems.
May 2024: Two-paced economy. Consumption still below pre-pandemic.
December 2024: Lucky. Just lucky.
Notice the pattern? No matter what India achieves, Rajan finds the cloud in every silver lining. India grows at 7%? He calls it luck.
Manufacturing takes off under Production Linked Incentive (PLI)? He spent a decade calling it a “fetish.”
Then suddenly in September 2024, after the elections, a shift. “India has done well in infrastructure, government’s focus on production is a good thing.”
Wait. What happened to the decade of doom?
By July 2025, he’s back on message. Manufacturing strategy may be outdated.
The Brown Sahib Speaks
This is textbook Macaulay Putra behavior. Rajan embodies what Indians call a “Brown Sahib.” The anglicized elite who speaks down to the natives. His education screams colonial dream. IIT, IIM, MIT PhD, IMF, Chicago Booth. He’s Macaulay’s perfect product, “Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, opinions, morals and intellect.” His tone drips with it.
“India is making a big mistake believing the hype.” Translation? You naive natives are getting ahead of yourselves.
“We’ve been lucky.” Translation? Don’t credit your policies, credit fortune.
“Dangerously close to Hindu rate of growth.” Translation? I’ll use your own historical insult against you.
Every statement carries that veranda vibe. The colonial administrator surveying the chaos below, shaking his head at the foolish locals who don’t understand their own limitations. Western media loves it. Foreign Affairs publishes him. Davos invites him. The global elite nods along. A brown face telling them India’s rise is overhyped? Perfect.
Understanding the Two Groups
To understand Rajan, you need context. There are two ways people view India’s history with invaders, whether Chugtai Turk aka Mughal or British.
Group 1 believes those invasions had some justification. They see Mughal rule as bringing “syncretism” and British rule as “modernization.” This group includes leftist historians, communists, and others who rationalize foreign rule. They downplay atrocities to fit secular or globalist narratives.
Group 2 sees invaders as illegitimate aggressors with no moral justification. Often labeled “Hindu nationalists,” they view this stance as defensive, not supremacist. They’re reclaiming agency against centuries of subjugation.
Rajan fits Group 1 perfectly. He doesn’t defend colonial rule directly, but he does something more subtle. He frames India’s indigenous efforts as misguided, suggesting Western economic models are superior.
The Toxic Expert’s Gold Lota No. 1
Here’s where it gets rich. During his RBI governorship, Rajan spent Rs 71 lakh shipping his household goods from Chicago to Mumbai and back. His entire three-year salary? Rs 61.2 lakh. The shipping cost more than the salary.
He lived in a Malabar Hill bungalow worth Rs 450 crore. He later joked about it in interviews, calling it his “biggest perk.” Rs 13,474 for a bathroom AC. Five paintings as farewell gifts, officially valued at Rs 50,000 but worth lakhs.
The RBI admitted no rules existed for such expenses, so they bent them for his “relevant circumstances.”
This recalls an old Indian parable. An honest judge lived in a mansion with a garden, but the toilet was at the periphery. A cunning litigant filled his toilet pitcher with gold coins along the judge’s path. When the judge found it during his private morning routine, he was tempted. Later in court, the litigant’s lawyer made a sly reference. “It’s like saying you can discover gold coins in your lota in the toilet in the wee hours of morning.” The judge knew he’d been caught, whether he took the gold or not. The litigant won.
Rajan’s lota was overflowing with public funds.
Ancient Indian philosopher Acharya Chanakya warned about this. “Just as it is impossible to know when a fish swimming in water is drinking it, so it is impossible to find out when people in charge of undertakings misappropriate money.”
Rajan lectures India about fiscal prudence from Chicago. About structural problems. About hype and luck. But he swam in public funds like every bureaucrat Acharya Chanakya warned about.
Rajan’s May 2014 Gold Lota No. 2
Five days after election results gave India a new government, Raghuram Rajan made a move. On May 21, 2014, the RBI under Rajan issued a circular. It modified the controversial 80:20 gold import scheme, allowing certain private Star Trading Houses and Premier Trading Houses to import gold. The new government hadn’t even been sworn in yet.
The timing raised eyebrows.
The 80:20 scheme itself was a UPA creation from August 2013, designed to curb gold imports and reduce the Current Account Deficit. Under it, importers could sell 80% of gold domestically but had to re-export the remaining 20% as jewelry before bringing in new shipments. Initially, only banks and PSUs like MMTC could import under this scheme.
Rajan defended the modification. He said it followed “objective criteria” from the Commerce Ministry regarding star exporters. The restrictions had choked supply, he argued, creating a premium on domestic gold prices. The liberalization would improve supply and help gem and jewelry exports.
But a CAG report later revealed what really happened. Thirteen private trading houses gained heavily from this last-minute modification. They received significant windfall gains.
The new NDA government, sworn in shortly after, scrapped the entire 80:20 scheme in November 2014. They cited the distortions and undue benefits it created.
Critics saw a pattern. Rajan, days before a government change, modified rules that enriched specific private entities. The outgoing Congress government fell on May 16. Rajan’s circular came May 21. The new government took office May 26.
Another lota. Another discovery of gold at a convenient moment. Rajan lectures about structural reforms and fiscal discipline. But when it mattered, he bent rules for “relevant circumstances” just like his Rs 71 lakh shipping costs.
The fish was swimming in water. And drinking freely.
The Flip-Flop Defense
When caught in contradictions, the press calls him “adaptive.”
That’s the toxic expert’s shield. Change your position? You’re not inconsistent, you’re responding to new data. Praise what you spent ten years attacking? You’re pragmatic, not hypocritical.
2015 to 2024: Manufacturing is a fetish. Services are India’s strength.
2024: Government’s focus on production is good.
2025: Manufacturing strategy outdated.
The Western press frames this as intellectual flexibility. Reality? It’s political timing. Criticize before elections. Grudgingly acknowledge afterward. Return to criticism when safe. He’s not analyzing India’s economy. He’s positioning himself in Western academic circles where being anti-establishment India earns you the microphone. He is also positioning him to be next Finance Minister of India if Rahul Gandhi becomes Prime Minister. But give credit to him, unlike Gandhi he did not call India “a dead economy” while echoing Trump.
The Pattern
His IMF background shows. His Chicago perch broadcasts it. His recommendations always point back to Western frameworks. Services over manufacturing, structural reforms that mirror IMF prescriptions, warnings against “subsidies” that created India’s PLI success.
Group 1 loves him because he provides the brown face for their arguments. See? Even an Indian economist agrees India’s doing it wrong.
Group 2 sees through it. Another Macaulay Putra swimming in Western grant money, telling India it needs more Western “intelligence” to succeed. The eternal pessimist isn’t pessimistic about everything. Just about India doing things its own way.
That’s not economics. That’s ideology dressed in equations.