Saturday, August 16, 2014

Raghuram Rajan's father was a spy

I have heard RBI governor Raghuram Rajan's father being described as a 'diplomat' and I have found it rather intriguing because it has never been said that his father was an IFS officer or ambassador. Well, the mystery, at least for me, is now cleared up with Rajan confirming, in an interview with FT,  that his father was an officer in India's intelligence service. ( It appears to be RAW). Rajan is quick to clarify that his father was no James Bond:
It is a topic Rajan discusses rarely, so I decide to be blunt. While growing up, did he know that his father was a spy? He didn’t, he replies, finding out only later. “He used to tell me that John le CarrĂ© got it largely right,” he says of his father’s profession. “You’re just like another bureaucrat, except you’re doing things that other people would find very, very interesting. But it’s not that you’re walking around with a Walther PPK and lovely women . . .  My mother would not have appreciated that.
For the record, Rajan denied any ambition to occupy political office, saying that he plans to get back to academics and focus on India-related research:
My intent has been, and is, to go back to academia,” he says, sketching out a future research agenda on the interplay of markets and democracy, with a particular focus on India itself. The question of what type of country India will become interests him in particular, especially given its socialist heritage and often-ambivalent relationship to the free market. “In India, we say one thing, and we do something else,” he says as we finish our coffee, and place our napkins to one side. “So what are we trying to do as a country? Figuring that out, I think, would also be fun.”

1 comment:

Nirav Kanodra said...

This was reported in the Caravan a Magazine article on RRR