Rahul Gandhi: I am surprised to see how important environment and trust are to the economy. What I see among the Corona catastrophe is that the issue of trust is the real problem. People do not understand what is going to happen next. There is a fear in the whole system. Talk about unemployment, there is a big problem, there is a large scale unemployment, which is going to be huge now. How do we proceed for unemployment, when we get rid of this crisis, how will we deal with unemployment in the next 2-3 months?

Raghuram Rajan: The figures are very worrying. Looking at the statistics of CMIE, it is found that about 11 crore more people will become unemployed due to Corona crisis. 5 crore people will lose their jobs, about 60 million people will be out of the labor market. You can raise questions on a survey, but we have these figures in front of us and these figures are very broad. This should make us think that we should open the economy by weighing it, but as fast as possible, it will have to be done so fast that people start getting jobs. We do not have the ability to help all classes. We are a relatively poor country, people do not have much savings.

But I ask you a question. We have seen a lot of measures in America and Europe has taken such steps keeping in mind the ground reality. The Government of India has a completely different reality that it is facing. What do you think is the difference between dealing with the situation in the West and India's ground reality?

Rahul Gandhi: First of all scale, the enormity of the problem and the financial system at its core is the problem. Inequality and the nature of inequality. Caste problem, because the system that Indian society is in is completely different from American society. The ideas that are pushing India back are deeply ingrained in society and hidden. In such a situation, I feel that India needs a lot of social change, and this problem is different in every state. The politics of Tamil Nadu, the culture there, the language there, the thinking of the people there is completely different from the people of Uttar Pradesh. In such a situation, you will have to develop arrangements around it. The same formula will not work, cannot work for the whole of India.

Also, our government is completely different from the US, in our system of governance, there is a thinking of control in our administration. We have one DM (District Magistrate) as compared to a producer. We only think about control, people say that it is so since the British era. I do not believe so. I believe this is a system even before the British.

The way of governance in India has always been control and I think that is the biggest challenge before us today. We are unable to control corona disease, so as you said, it has to be stopped.

Another thing that bothers me is inequality. This has been the case in India for many decades. As inequality is in India, it will not be seen in America. So whenever I think, I think how to reduce inequality because when a system reaches its high point then it stops working. You will remember Gandhiji's sentence that go to the end of the line and see what is happening there. This is a big lesson for a leader, it is not used, but I think a lot of things will come out of here.

How do you deal with inequality? This is also visible in the corona crisis. That is, the way India is treating the poor, how are we adopting the attitude of our people? There are two different views about migrant versus thriving. There are two different India. How do you combine these two together?

Raghuram Rajan: See, you know the bottom of the pyramid. We know some ways to improve the lives of the poor, but we have to think carefully so that we can reach everyone. I believe that many governments have worked for food, health, education and better jobs, but the challenges that I feel are administrative challenges. In my view, the big challenge is from lower middle class to middle class. Their needs are jobs, good jobs so that people do not depend on government jobs.

I believe that there is a need to work on this front and in view of this it is necessary to expand the economy. We have seen our economic growth falling over the last few years, despite the fact that we have an army of young workers.

So I would say not just go to the possibilities, but create opportunities that flourish. Even if there have been some mistakes in the past years, this is the way to move forward. Think of the way in which we have progressed successfully, moving into software and outsourcing services. Who could have thought that all this would become India's strength, but all this has come to the fore and some people argue that it came because the government did not pay attention to it. I do not believe so. But we should consider any possibility, give opportunity to the entrepreneurship of the people.

Rahul Gandhi: Thank you, thank you Dr. Rajan

Raghuram Rajan: Thank you very much, nice to talk to you.

Rahul Gandhi: Are you safe?

Raghuram Rajan: I am safe, Goodluck

Rahul Gandhi: Thank you, bye

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