Indira’s bank nationalisation has kept Indian economy afloat, says Sonia

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi said on Friday that but for the late prime minister Indira Gandhi’s “much reviled” bank nationalisation four decades ago, the country’s financial institutions would have been hit hard by the current global economic crisis.

“Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision (to nationalise banks in 1969),” Gandhi said in her address at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. “If you allow me the liberty of showing what is to you the proverbial red rag to a bull, let me take you back to Indira Gandhi’s much reviled bank nationalisation of 40 years ago,” she told the gathering.

Lauding the public-sector financial institutions, Gandhi said they had given the country’s economy the stability and resilience we are witnessing in the face of the global economic slowdown.

Prudence implies ensuring an economic system that imposes clear, fair rules and rewards those who play by them, Gandhi said. It also implies a system that insists upon transparency in all economic transactions and accountability on the part of those who conduct them, she said.

“And it implies a system that accepts the need for supervisory institutions to serve as effective watchdogs, so that the interests of society as a whole are not overlooked in the justifiable quest for corporate gain.”