Deft High-wire walking

Raghuram G. Rajan is the RBI Governor for nothing – he knows how to walk a tight rope at dizzying heights, without a net.

Which states of India has the committee headed by him mentioned as the best performing? If you have gone visiting Antarctica during the past few weeks, let me help you catch up.  But, before that …

Governor Raghuram (this is to differentiate him from this writer!) must have been aware of the recent duels between two economists, two biggies and as big as they come – Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia and Amartya Sen of Harvard. No, neither I am going to pick between the two nor ask you to do so. But, you must be aware that, in layman understanding, while Sen pitches for what has come to be loosely called the “Kerala Model”, the Columbia professor pitches in with appreciation for the “Gujarat Model”.

So, Governor Raghuram had his work cut out for him – he cannot go with either with Sen or Bhagwati without antagonizing the other. Therefore, he went with both! The committee placed both Kerala and Gujarat as the best performers. That is a high-wire act of impeccable balance. I suspect the committee tuned its parameters finely enough to match these states, decimal point to decimal point!

Rest assured that RBI is in good hands. After all, being my namesake, Governor Raghuram can hardly be otherwise!

Raghuram Ekambaram