To paraphrase yet again the much paraphrased Churchillian World War II tribute to the Royal Air Force, never, in independent India, has so much been owed by so many to so few. Home loans, the most extraordinary example in India of democratising prosperity, will become even tougher to repay as RBI squeezed credit again on Tuesday evening; all bank interest rates, including those on home loans, are set to increase once more.

“Endless Monthly Instalments”, this newspaper’s ongoing reportage series on how high home loan rates are affecting Indians who underwrote the post-reforms India story, can carry on endlessly. Because home loans are the reason monetary policy has descended from its perch of macroeconomic esoterica and entered living rooms. They are the reason the one thing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh apparently can do more or less by himself — appoint the next RBI governor — must be preceded by some serious thinking, on RBI.

Yaga Venugopal Reddy, the current RBI governor, demits office on September 6. The pink press is already carrying commentary/speculation on the shortlist of candidates who can replace Reddy. In a clear and well-informed commentary in Mint (June 23), Tamal Bandyopadhyay put down the pros and the cons of, and corridors-of-power concerns about, the informally shortlisted candidates: RBI’s deputy governor, the Union finance secretary and the deputy chairperson of the planning commission. Your correspondent has no special insight into who’s closest to getting the job or whether there’s a surprise candidate. But we do have an argument legitimised by the apprehension that monthly home loan statements have come to represent for millions of Indians: the next RBI governor must walk into a different RBI.

... contd.