India’s second President, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, was often likened to Plato’s philosopher king. India’s tenth Prime Minister, Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao, was not far behind, in that he was quite distinctly the most accomplished in a literary sense — poet, translator, novelist, scholar, linguist. He was not exactly known to be a shrewd strategist or astute politician.
With such a background, Narasimha Rao surprised the nation by the inspired decisions he made as soon as he assumed offi ce as prime minister, setting India on a path of economic freedom and changing the course of its history permanently.
Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister of India from 1991 to 1996, was the true architect of the economic reforms that launched the country as an emerging economic power. For it was he who appointed Dr Manmohan Singh, an economist, as the union fi nance PV Narasimha Rao (1921-2004) minister, at a time when the country was on the brink of fi scal disaster, about to default on its international debt obligations.
He initiated an extensive and dynamic programme of economic liberalisation, reforms and restructuring, and as prime minister and president of the Congress party, gave his fi nance minister complete support at every stage to push through the reforms under the economic liberalisation programme of the country.
As a part of this programme India prioritised economic objectives in its foreign policy in order to mobilise overseas investment and technology to India, and expand the Indian market while at the same time improving India’s access to foreign markets.
The programme liberated Indian industry from the stranglehold of the licence-permit raj of the past, throwing open the doors of competition and establishing a free market economy.
Narasimha Rao would have probably never become prime minister had a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorist not assassinated Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May 1991, while he was campaigning for the 1991 general elections.
The Congress won the elections, and the party nominated Narasimha Rao for the prime minister’s post. He assumed charge in mid-June 1991, and served a full term of fi ve years, till June 1996. He became one of the most effective prime ministers of India, with his intuitive choice of a brilliant economist with no political background as the man to bring about the far-reaching changes in India’s economic policies that would make the world sit up and take notice of her as a future super power.
The value of that unstinting support becomes all the clearer now as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, leading a coalition government just as Narasimha Rao did, struggles to carry his partners with him to take the reforms programme to its logical conclusion.
Rao responded superbly to the transformation and churning then taking place in world politics. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union were unprecedented events, changing the global balance of power forever. Rao initiated far-reaching changes in India’s foreign and national security policies during his tenure.
Son of Shri P Ranga Rao, Shri P V Narasimha Rao was born on 28 June 1921 at Karim Nagar, Andhra Pradesh. He studied at Osmania University, Hyderabad, Bombay University and Nagpur University. He was the father of three sons and five daughters.
A freedom fi ghter and member of the Congress party way before Independence, Narasimha Rao participated in the Quit India movement.
He began his political life in his home state of Andhra Pradesh, in south India, where his tenure as chief minister (1971-73) was quiet and unremarkable. It was after he moved to the national parliament after being elected its member that he began to make a mark in India’s politics. And it was Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who spotted Rao’s several sterling qualities that remained hidden under a modest exterior, and began to give him duties that steadily increased in importance.
He held several cabinet posts between 1980 and 1989 under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi including those of external affairs and defence.
Rao assumed charge as foreign minister at a time when India’s neighbourhood was in turmoil. Zia-ul-Haq was consolidating his position in Pakistan. The Afghan revolution of 1978 and the Iranian revolution of 1979 had generated tension. India’s relations with Nepal, Sri Lanka and China were beset by a number of bilateral issues. Russian troops had entered Afghanistan in support of the leftist revolution there.
Narasimha Rao resumed more frequent dialogues with Pakistan. Fearing Pakistani attempts to foment separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and the Punjab. Rao initiated bilateral foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan in June 1980, a process that continued almost till the end of Zia-ul- Haq’s tenure as president of Pakistan.
He was also the fi rst emissary to be sent to President Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, immediately after the ethnic riots there. Rao pointed out the threat to Sri Lanka’s unity and territorial integrity if the government failed to meet Tamil aspirations.
After Indira Gandhi’s death in 1984, Rao handled the ministries of education and human resources development in 1985, until Rajiv Gandhi brought him back to the external affairs portfolio in 1987.
In his second stint as foreign minister, he carried out Rajiv Gandhi’s initiatives on disarmament and arms control, and the ethnic confl ict in Sri Lanka.
Rao’s advice led to Rajiv Gandhi’s fi ve-nation initiative on disarmament, and his important proposals for disarmament submitted at the special session of the UN General Assembly in 1988-89. Rajiv Gandhi’s efforts to resume high-level political contacts with China were also said to be inspired by advice from Narasimha Rao.
In 1987, the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement was signed between India and Sri Lanka, and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was sent to Sri Lanka.
The one blot in his career was his failure to stop the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992 by fundamentalist forces.
A man of many interests, he liked music, cinema and theatre. With deep interest in Indian philosophy and culture, he wrote fi ction, political commentary, and poems in Telugu and Hindi.
He translated famous works from Marathi to Telugu and from Telugu to Hindi, and published many articles. He lectured at universities in the USA and West Germany on political matters and allied subjects. Narasimha Rao, the scholar Prime Minister of India died on 23 December 2004.