Right to repress.

"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not 'behind the curve' in hiking interest rate to tackle inflation, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Ashima Goyal said...and asserted that it is never wise to overreact to shocks when the recovery is shaky post the coronavirus pandemic," ET. No one likes to admit to failure. "In the US, there was over-stimulus due to large government spending. Labor markets are tight. The Fed may be behind the curve, the RBI is not. The Indian inflation trajectory differs from that of the US," she stressed. Indeed. Personal consumption expenditure in the fourth quarter of 2021 in the US was $16.34 trillion, The Balance. India's private final expenditure for the same period was just $529.530 billion, CEIC. Despite the massive difference in demand, average consumer price inflation in the US has been consistently below 2% after September 2008 till March 2021, usinflationcalculator, whereas average annual inflation in India has been consistently around 5% or higher, except in 2017, inflation.eu. Since inflation compounds year on year, price rises in India must be in multiples of the US. The difference in inflation means that the rupee buys less compared to the dollar so the rupee must depreciate in value against the dollar. In 1947, the year of Independence, one dollar was equivalent to 3.30 rupees, falling to 73.78 to the dollar in December 2020, Thomas Cook. Today one dollar buys 77.70 rupees, xe.com. Thus, the rupee has fallen by nearly 25 times against the dollar, which means a 25 times rise in the cost of imports. No wonder, India is a poor country. The RBI is dead against cryptocurrencies because "Most Indians who buy cryptos, convert rupees into dollars, in order to buy them," BI. Poor Indians are only trying to protect the value of their savings. But converting to dollars will prevent the RBI from financial repression, Investopedia, of Indian citizens by enforcing a negative interest rate on savers, moneylife. "Inflation is high today because underlying pressures have been building up for years, and RBI, despite its legal mandate, has not acted in time to stop them," wrote Prof Rajeswari Sengupta. "Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, consumer price index (CPI) inflation has averaged 5.8%." This was despite a stringent lockdown, wikipedia, that brought consumer demand almost to a halt.  Wholesale price index (WPI) inflation has been averaging at 13% since April 2021. The glib reason given is that high interest rates will decrease borrowing by businesses and thus hinder growth. Nonsense. In the 15 years, from 2007-08 to 2021-22, the repo rate was raised in 5 years, which saw higher credit uptake than in the 7 years when the repo rate was lowered, wrote Madan Sabnavis. As per Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the IMF, "86% of India's imports and exports are invoiced in dollars". With our own central bank trashing the rupee who will want it? Of course, they'll never admit it.