The Modi government's spat with the RBI is rooted in the structural characteristic of neo-liberalism. This entire debate has arisen as a fall-out of neo-liberalism, of the contradictions that inevitably arise in a neo-liberal economy between the compulsion on the part of the government to please international finance and its need to win elections. Expenditures have to be stepped up for the latter, while international finance disapproves of such stepping up.
    
* The article was originally published in the Peoples Democracy on November 12, 2018.