Mumbai, April 20: It all boils down to logomachy - a war of words over the choice of words.

Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan had ignited a huge controversy in New York earlier this week when he described India as "a one-eyed King in the land of the blind" in response to a journalist's question on the country's emergence as the fastest growing economy in the world.

Rajan tried to clear the air over his controversial remark that the media turned into a severe headline-grabbing criticism of the Narendra Modi government's performance, drawing sharp rebuttals from finance minister Arun Jaitley, his deputy Jayant Sinha and commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman. "How forgiving should we be of a bad choice of words when the intent is clearly different," Rajan said while delivering his convocation address at the National Institute of Bank Management in Pune.

"As a central banker who has to be pragmatic, I cannot get euphoric if India is the fastest growing large economy. Our current growth certainly reflects the hard work of the government and the people of the country, but we have to repeat this performance over the next 20 years before we can give every Indian a decent livelihood," the RBI governor said.

The governor said his intention was to signal that India's economic out-performance was "accentuated because world growth was weak."

"I then explained that we were not at our potential though we were at a cusp of a substantial pick-up in growth given all the reforms that were underway," he said.

After Rajan's comment, Jaitley had responded that any other country would have been celebrating if it achieved a growth rate of 7.5 per cent. "It is a tribute to India's growth story that we are still impatient because we know that our potential is to do better."

"We are the shining star. I don't agree with what the (RBI) governor said," Sinha added.

"Whatever action the government is taking is yielding results," Sitharaman had riposted.

However, Rajan did some straight talking as well by suggesting that the excessive focus on the growth story was a little overdone.

"Growth...is just one measure of performance. The level of per capita GDP is also important. We are still one of the poorest large countries in the world on a per capita basis," he added.

"We cannot get carried away by our current superiority in growth. For as soon as we believe in our own superiority and start distributing future wealth as if we already have it, we stop doing all that is required to continue growing," he said.

Rajan said if any one had to take offence to his remarks, it was the blind. "I do want...to apologize to a section of the population that I hurt, the blind...The proverb suggests that a one-eyed man is better than a blind one...This is not true. For the blind can develop capabilities that more than make up for their disability."

While admitting that his choice of words was bad, Rajan said "if we spend all our time watching our words and using inoffensive language... we will be dull and will not be able to communicate because no one will listen."

This is not the first time that Rajan's choice of words has stirred controversy.

Last September, he said people had started calling him Santa Claus after a sharp and sudden 50 basis points cut in the repo rate.

"I don't know what you want to call me... Santa Claus....you want to call me a hawk. I don't go by this. My name is Raghuram Rajan and I do what I do," Rajan had said, indicating that the rate cut was his decision and he hadn't buckled under any external pressure.

Later, he admitted his children had expressed disapproval over his choice of words. "My kids said, 'Yuck, Dad, you can do better'."

Central bankers have often got into trouble over their statements in the past.

In 1996, then Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan - whom Rajan has called his favourite central banker - stirred a massive controversy when he said: "We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability. Indeed, the sharp stock market break of 1987 had few negative consequences for the economy."

Years later, Greenspan was blamed for not doing enough to stop the economic meltdown in 2008 triggered by the collapse of the market for mortgage instruments.