Would You Call Govt Anti-National?: Raghuram Rajan on Panchjanya's Infosys Barb

Rajan said that the view expressed in the weekly was "completely unproductive".

File image of former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan.

(Photo: Reuters)

Over a week after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-linked journal Panchjanya attacked Infosys by saying that it supported 'anti-national forces', former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan rebuked, "Would you accuse the government of being anti-national for not doing a good job on vaccines initially?"

Speaking to NDTV, he called the view expressed in the weekly as "completely unproductive".

"It just strikes me as Would you accuse the government of being anti-national for not doing a good job on vaccines initially? You say it is a mistake. And people do make mistakes."

Raghuram Rajan, as per NDTV

Noting the widely criticised rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), he added, "I don't think the GST rollout has been spectacular. It could have been done better... but learn from those mistakes and don't use it as a club to roll out your own prejudices," NDTV quoted.

The EX-Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor also spoke on other matters in the country and cautioned against reading too much into the "rebound" in India's factory output owing to the low base on which the numbers have been computed, and the "skewed" nature of recovery, NDTV reported.

Rajan, however, stated that there was a "reasonable recovery" on the industrial side.

Background

The weekly Panchjanya in its cover story had accused India's biggest IT firm of being aligned with the "anti-national forces" such as the "Naxals, leftists and tukde tukde gang".

However, Sunil Ambekar, the All-India publicity in-charge of RSS, took to Twitter and said that the article published in Panchjanya "reflects individual opinion of the author".

Infosys has been under fire for the glitches in the Income Tax Department's new e-filing portal designed by the company. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has given Infosys time till 15 September to fix the issues.

(With inputs from NDTV.)