Yes, it’s true. Reserve Bank of India’s governor, Raghuran Rajan, is very un-Indian on several counts.

First, like Dr Manmohan Singh before him and unlike every other Governor of the Reserve Bank, Rajan became governor at the “tender”— almost youthful age by Indian metrics — of just 50 years. This is a tribute to his compelling competitiveness for the position. But more importantly, this means he is likely to have a long professional afterlife, once he stops being governor, just like Dr Singh.

But unlike Dr Singh, Rajan is keeping his professional options open in case his term is not extended. Of course, Rajan is not the first RBI Governor to contemplate a life out of public office. IG Patel, the distinguished 14^th governor of the RBI, went on to head the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and then the London School of Economics and is rumoured to have declined the offer of becoming Finance Minister in 1991.  However such instances of daring to dream beyond everlasting public service are rare in India.

Second, Rajan, unlike all his predecessors, did not come to the Governor’s office via the serpentine pathways of the extended public sector. Like millions of upwardly mobile and aspiring, middle class Indians of his generation, he earned his spurs abroad, in academia and then in the International Monetary Fund – where merit means having the capacity to challenge status quo in an evidenced manner and propose sensible, better policy options.

Perturbing the status quo is not a quality held in high regard in the backwardly-inclined Delhi Durbar. Here, precedent and incremental change — often mistakenly equated with policy predictability —command a premium. Rajan stands out for his impatience with being satisfied with an India known perpetually for its potential,but with an unendingly, shoddy present. Worse, he speaks out against a financial system which has traditionally encouraged crony capitalism; been cavalier with the rights of the poor and constrained, rather than freed, India’s abundant animal spirits.

Third, Rajan’s single minded pursuit of macro-economic stability – read as low inflation — in an increasingly uncertain world, marks him out from the prevailing, convenient consensus in India: that we can spend our way out of an economic downturn. Of course, inflation doesn’t really bother Imperial Delhi, Mercantile Mumbai or Harit Hapur.

After all, babu pay and pension is 100 percent indexed to inflation, so why worry? Neither does inflation bother corporate India. Inflation pushes real interest rates into negative territory,thereby reducing the real cost of servicing debt and makes fresh borrowing cheap. Nor does inflation bother big farmers who produce cereals or sugarcane, since their crops are sold on a cost plus basis determined by government. Never mind that inflation is a silent killer for the daily wager in the unorganised rural and urban sector, who has to eat one roti less to make do and for the lower middle class and the aged, who see their savings go up in smoke.

Fourth, by striving to make private bank licenses available on-tap, for applicants who meet the eligibility criteria, Rajan displays completely un-Indian haste in throwing away executive discretion in favour of transparency. By seeking to discipline banks and force them to clean up their balance sheets, Rajan is exceedingly un-Indian in hitting at the roots of the cosy relationship between politics and corporate money, which dates back to the Freedom Movement.

Lastly, Rajan’s ultimate betrayal of Bharatiyata is that he holds a Green Card, which entitles him to permanent residence in America. Even worse, he wants to hang onto that privilege if he gets a second term as governor, post-September 2016. Should he not have reciprocated his everlasting gratitude to the nation, on being appointed governor, by tearing up his Green Card? Certainly, it would have been a grand gesture of his long term commitment to India had he done so. But in a democracy, contractual obligations are determined by the law, not sentiment.

What is really galling is, that by hanging onto his Green Card, Rajan displays a very un-Indian desire to seek a second term, not as an abject supplicant but as a professional, on terms which are mutually acceptable between him and his employer – the Government of India. Of course this is never-before-seen arrogance by the standards of the public sector, where applicants must wait cap in hand, for the chance to serve.

The only problem is that Rajan’s approach is the only way we will ever have a professional, merit-based bureaucracy, working in public, rather than political interest. The reason why the internationally followed system of contractual appointments have never found salience in the public service in India is that politicians fear losing control over a contractually appointed bureaucracy, which can say no- because it has market based options, outside the public sector.

Consider also that the hordes of expatriate Indians who throng Prime Minister Modi’s meetings overseas, are similarly un-Indian, like Rajan, because they value competition and choice above embedded entitlements.

Guess what, all those working in the domestic private sector are also un-Indian, like Rajan, because they have no secure, lifetime tenures. They have to face the test of competitiveness, on a daily basis.

In fact, even Finance Minister ArunJaitley might also be un-Indian, under his very Indian clothes. After all, he does seem to be quite comfortable with Rajan and birds of a feather flock together. But, then again perhaps not. After all, Jaitley’s Hindi is impeccable, whilst no one has heard Rajan speak in Hindi. Field Marshall KM Cariappa, couldn’t speak in Hindi either. But when harried about it by the enthu nationalists of his time, he riposted that he made up for not knowing Hindi by having a heart that was “ekdum Hindustani”. Surely, so is Rajan’s and that should be good enough?