Let Us Give P V Narasimha Rao his Share of Credit

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Congress led front has retained power with very clear majority in India and Dr Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister of India for the second time. Dr Manmohan Singh is hailed by media, Congress leaders and workers, ruling UPA leaders and common man as the person who changed the face of India by bringing economic liberalization. They all hail the contribution of Dr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister from 1991-96.

I am very sad to see that whoever is praising Dr Manmohan Singh is not even mentioning the name of P V Narasimha Rao, the former Prime Minister of India, who had the vision to appoint a former Reserve Bank Governor as Finance Minister and give Dr Singh full support to implement the economic policies. Even in the advertisements brought out by the Congress Party prior to elections there was no mention of P V Narasimha Rao. Remember “Jai Ho” advertisements – it mentions the name of all the former Congress Prime Ministers but not the name of P V Narasimha Rao.

Why is Congress party, its leaders and workers neglecting Rao? Has he not done enough as Prime Minister to make them proud? Doesn’t his action as Prime Minister really helped India in her march towards 21^st century as a stronger and self sufficient nation?

I have written a blog about P V Narasimha Rao about two years back that I think is still relevant. I am republishing that below. I feel it is time for all of us to give due credit to the contributions of P V Narasimha Rao to India’s development.

One of my family friend’s daughter wrote to me last week that she got 4 jobs in top IT companies in India and asked me if she should take any of them or go for higher studies. This girl has just reached final year of engineering and she has 4 high paying jobs to choose from. This is India of the 21st century. Majority of the students studying for engineering have multiple offers even before completing their course work.

Who was the main architect who “designed” this change? Have we given enough recognition to that man who had the courage to dream about the benefits of economic liberalization and took concrete steps to make that dream a reality? The man I am talking about is P V Narasimha Rao, former Prime Minister of India whose birthday falls in the month of June. This post is a tribute to this great politician who according to me was a true visionary a rare breed in Indian politics these days.

When Narasimha Rao took over as the 12th Prime Minister of India heading a minority Government, he was facing the worst economic crisis since independence. India was about to default in her international commitment to pay back the debts, the previous Government led by S Chandrasekhar had to pledge gold to pay the debts and inflation was going out of control. Narasimha Rao was about to retire from politics when fate – in the tragic form of assassination of Rajiv Gandhi – made him the Prime Minister of India.

Once he was elected the Prime Minister of India what was the first thing he did – having been part of the Government for more than two decades he could understand the gravity of the economic crisis facing the nation and appointed a bureaucrat Dr Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister. He had an option to choose from a long list of senior Congress leaders as Finance Minister – Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh, Madhav Rao Scindia, N D Tiwari to name a few. But he selected a non politician at the crucial juncture of Indian history. For me this one decision by Rao changed the face of the country. All of us – the generation in the early 20’s to mid 30’s - who are enjoying the fruits of economic liberalization like a very good job, with a fat pay check or so many job offers from different countries – we should be thankful to this great man. If Rao had appointed another politician and did not do anything to open up the economy we may not have seen all these economic growth happening in India now.

Rao not only appointed Dr Singh as the Finance Minister but also gave him all the political support he needed to push his reforms. This political support from Rao was very important for Dr Singh as that Government was in a minority for most of its term. The importance of political support from Rao (who was the Prime Minister as well as AICC President at that time) can be gauged by the fact that Dr Singh as Prime Minister was struggling to push the economic reforms as he is not getting enough political support from his party bosses and Left parties.

Rao has excelled in other fields also as the Prime Minister. His Government is instrumental in bringing peace back in Punjab. In the defense front he made all the ground work to make India a nuclear power – even though credit of actual nuclear test went to his successor Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The only real black spot in Rao’s tenure according to me happened on December 6th 1992, when Hindu fundamentalists (read RSS and BJP) demolished the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya. This incident will always remain as a black mark in the secular credentials of India. Rao failed to foresee that demolition was going to happen. I believe we can forgive him for this mistake he committed after considering all the good things he had done for our country.

At the fag end of his term, Rao was subjected to cruel media witch hunt. I remember reading in newspapers, pages and pages of stories about the various corruption and omissions committed by Rao (St Kitts forgery scandal, Lakhubhai Pathak cheating scandal, JMM bribery scandal to name few). He was painted a villain by the print and visual media. Even though he was cleared of all the charges by the highest court of the land he had to live with these allegations for the rest of his life.

Considering all the contributions Narasimha Rao has given to India’s development, especially to its growth as a major economic force in the world, I believe his name should be on par with great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. If Nehru and Gandhiji fought for India’s freedom from British I believe Rao fought and won the “economic freedom” – fruits of which we all are enjoying. So let us all pay a glowing tribute to him and remember this great man at the time when Congress has retained power at the Center.

“HAIL THIS GREAT SON OF INDIA FOR MAKING INDIA A MUCH BETTER PLACE TO LIVE”