Suppressing criticism is a "sure fire recipe" for policy mistakes, cautioned former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan in a har🔥d-hitting blog arguing that people in authority should tolerate criticism.
Rajan, who is currently a professor of finance at the University of Chicago, said con🌳stant criticism 😼allows period course correction to policy.
"Governments that suppress public criticism do themselves a g๊ross disservice🐈," he added.
"If every critic gets a phone call from a government functionary askin💞g them to back off, or gets targeted by the ruling party's troll army, many will tone d൲own their criticism. The government will then live in a pleasant make-believe environment until the harsh truth can no longer be denied," Rajan said while recalling the achievements of noted jurist and doyen of liberalism in India Nani Palkhivala.
People in t🦩he authority, he emphasised, ♔have to tolerate criticism.
"Undoubtedly, some of the criticism, including in t𒊎he press, is ill-informed, motivated, and descends into ad-hominem personal attacks. I have certainly had my share of those in past jobs. However, suppressing criticism is a sure-fire recipe for policy mistakes," he said.
Rajan's observations come in the backdrop of the Modi government removing Rathin Roy and Shamika Ravi from the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister asꦡ they were critical of the government's policies.
🐟Shamika Ravi, the director of research at Brookings India, and Rathin Roy, the director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, had questioned the government's decision to borrow funds from overseas markets through the sale of sovereign bonds.
Rajan, too, earlier cautioned the government about the consequences of raising funds through overseas sovereign b𝓰onds.
