THE Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently issued a pointed warning against the dangers of Government interference in the autonomy of regulatory institutions like the RBI. Such a public chastisement of the Government by a senior official of the RBI - clearly with the approval of his colleagues at the RBI - is probably unprecedented, and is reminiscent of the unprecedented Press Conference by the four Supreme Court judges warning against Government interference in the Supreme Court.
The Modi Government is indeed doing all it can to irreversibly damage and destroy the autonomy of many institutions in the country. The demonetisation disaster itself was clearly a massive attack on the autonomy of the RBI by the PM himself. The ongoing attempts of the Modi Government to manipulate and discipline the CBI to make insulate the Government from the possibility of investigation for corruption is another such instance.
The people of India must unite to send the Mo-disaster packing in the 2019 polls, in order to defend the autonomy of India’s various regulatory and investigative institutions.
