Winds Of Change

These are portentous times, but Shaktikanta Das is no maverick, and could hold true to his first name

- Clifford Alvares

BARELY A FLUTTER HAS been seen in the financial markets after a few unusually worrisome days peppered with anxiety over the manner in which RBI governor Urjit Patel huffed out of his Mint Street chair, overlapping the astonishing poll verdict when the Bharatiya Janata Party lost its mojo in three prime states.

The market response to both these ‘extraordinary’ events has been resilience: “taking all events in its stride”, “absorbing and reflecting all conditions”, a remarkably sombrestance, sans the usual stress that dogs such events. The rupee has held ground at Rs 72 to the dollar, bond yields on the 10-year G-sec have eased to 7.41 per cent, while the stock markets, post-verdict, have leaped more than 1,000 points.

And who would have thought that Patel, once known as a Modi confidant, would quit in a huff, with rumours rife that the government was trying to encircle and compress the RBI turf? Slammed “for being a silent spectator” to demonetisation, Patel has departed with his head held high. He was hailed for fighting to protect the RBI’s institutional autonomy. In the last few months, pressures from the finance ministry on various fronts compelled Patel to take the unprecedented step. Ever since liberalisation, no governor has quit prior to completion of his term.

Patel’s jaw-dropper departure was succeeded by the affable and unsurprising Shaktikanta Das, the RBI’s 25th governor, who had as economic affairs secretary held daily press conferences during demonetisation, someone who enjoys the confidence of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Ears are now to the ground on how he juggles the rod of greater government control (read, Modi and Jaitley) or rolls the ball of autonomy ahead.