Letter to BS: Warning by IMF is major breakthrough in sordid story

This refers to “Sovereign-banks nexus a worry: IMF” (August 9). The announcement to nationalise country’s 14 major private sector banks was made by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in a sensational broadcast on All India Radio on the evening of July 19, 1969. The History of Reserve Bank of India (Vol 3) has called it ‘The Defining Event’. She didn’t consult the Reserve Bank of India  Governor L K Jha before taking this decision. She had only told the then Finance Secretary I G Patel about it a day earlier, asking him to prepare her speech making the announcement.