Majoritarianism will be extremely dangerous for the future of India and it should be resisted at every step, noted economist and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said on Saturday.
Addressing a webinar, Rajan emphasised on the need to make the government more responsive to criticism by removing some of the legislative constraints on criticism.
“Our trend towards majoritarianism has enormous consequences, all of them adverse…it is against every economic principle,” he warned. Known for his frank views, Rajan said India needs inclusive growth and the country cannot have inclusive growth by treating any segment of the population as second class citizens.
According to him, majoritarianism is divisive, it divides India at a time when India has to stay together, given external threats that the country faces.
“The way we see majoritarianism playing out, in a sense, will be extremely dangerous for the future of India. I think it should be resisted at every step,” the eminent economist said.
Rajan, currently a Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said that India has strong growth today but one has to be careful about growth numbers.
“Any growth obviously should be celebrated. But we can’t ignore the fact that the strong growth is from disastrous numbers posted in the last fiscal year,” he said.
The eminent economist pointed out that India has been underperforming ever since the global financial crisis.
“We have not created good jobs that we need…despite the strong growth, we are significantly below the pre-pandemic trend line,” he noted.
According to Rajan, India’s export performance has been good but not spectacular.
The eminent economist stressed on increasing female labour force participation in India.
He however added: “Even during the last decade of slow growth India has had some successes But we need to do better.”
Noting that data is needed for making the right decision, Rajan said,” We need a learning government. We should stop suppressing data ,whether it is data on unemployment or data on COVID deaths.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.
We, however, have a request.
As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.
Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.
Digital Editor
For all the latest Business News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.