Raghuram Rajan may have said 'no' to a second term as the Reserve Bank of India chairman, but his father, retired senior bureaucrat R Govindaraja has said that he may have stayed on had the government responded more promptly after attacks on him begun.
“I feel if the government had responded promptly when the attacks started, possibly he wouldn’t have come to this decision,” Govindarajan told The Indian Express.
Rajan's mother, describing the RBI governor as 'fearless', said, “Let anyone question his policies, or style of functioning. But isn’t it unfair attacking someone personally, questioning his patriotism?”
Mythili said "Rajan was born in India and came to India hoping to do better things."
On Monday, in an interview to Times Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally broke his silence on the topic and said that Rajan was a true patriot and that people who criticised him did “a great injustice to him”.
Rajan had announced on June 18 that he will not be taking a second term as RBI governor after his tenure ends in September. The move came after continued criticism of him by Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Subramanian Swamy.
Swamy had alleged that Rajan was attempting to “wreck the Indian economy” and had demanded his suspension. He also claimed Rajan was mentally "not fully Indian".
“As much as I know Raghuram Rajan, whatever post he holds, wherever he is, he is someone who will continue to serve the country. He is someone who loves his country,” Modi said in the interview, snubbing Swamy.
While Rajan's parents are upset because of the controversy, they feel he may be hurt but it won't bog him down.
Since he became the RBI governor in September 2013, Rajan went home only about 4 times--and that's Mythili’s only regret.
“Even if he finds time to visit, he can’t stay with us. He has to stay in a hotel where his security and all the formalities can be taken care of," she said.
She said that Rajan would have become a politician if she had allowed him to study Economics in St Stephens, and not encouraged him to go to IIT. "He would have entered politics like leaders we see in JNU these days. That was the age,” she said.