Assigned to the Intelligence Bureau, R Govindarajan, his father, was posted to Indonesia in 1966. In 1968 he joined the newly created external intelligence unit of the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) where he served as staff officer under R. N. Kao and became part of the "Kaoboys". In 1970 he was posted to Sri Lanka, where Raghuram Rajan missed school one year because of political turmoil. After Sri Lanka, R Govindarajan was posted to Belgium where the children attended a French school. In 1974 the family returned to India. Throughout his childhood, Rajan presumed his father to be a diplomat since the family traveled on diplomatic passports. He was a half-term student of Campion School, Bhopal until 1974.