PM Narasimha Rao: Politician and scholar PV Narasimha Rao is known as the Chanakya of Indian politics. Far-reaching economic reforms were initiated in the country during his tenure as Prime Minister. On Friday (February 9), 19 years after Rao’s death, it was announced that he would be awarded the country’s highest civilian award ‘Bharat Ratna’. He held the post of Prime Minister of the country from 1991 to 1996.
Narasimha Rao was the first Prime Minister of the country from a southern state. He was the first Congress leader from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to complete a five-year term as Prime Minister. He brought India out of the economic whirlpool in the early 1990s.
Babri Masjid demolished
During his five-year tenure as Prime Minister, the demolition of the Babri Masjid took place, saffron forces emerged and the country moved firmly on a new economic path, a departure from the Nehru era of public sector socialism.
Displaying his erudition and political acumen, he counseled Muslim clerics in Urdu language after the Babri demolition in 1992. After the incident, he quoted verses from Bhagavad Gita while addressing the probation officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) at his residence.
He had said a day before becoming the Prime Minister that he was feeling overwhelmed and like an influential person at this time. Rao never stayed out of political discussion.
The loyal Congress member was referred to by some in his party, including colleague Mani Shankar Aiyar, as the country’s first BJP prime minister due to his contradictory ideological stances, and several BJP leaders alleged that Rao was rejected by his own party. Was.
Born in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh
Rao was born on June 28, 1921 in a farming family in Wangara village of Karimnagar district of undivided Andhra Pradesh. He was educated at Osmania, Mumbai and Nagpur Universities, from where he obtained B.Sc. and LLB degrees.
Rao was also a Union Minister
His debut in the field of politics took place in 1938 during the protest against the Nizam government’s ban on singing ‘Vande Mataram’ in his college. Rao, a confidant of the Nehru-Gandhi family, held the external affairs, defense and home ministries at the Center during different periods in the 1980s. Rao became Prime Minister at a time when he was away from the limelight.
Did not contest 1991 elections
He did not contest the 1991 elections, had almost given up spending time in the national capital and was said to have retired from politics, but fate had something else in store. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on 21 May 1991. Rao became the consensus candidate for the post of Congress President, which made him Prime Minister after the election.
He led a minority government for some time and later won a majority in the Lok Sabha under controversial circumstances, which his opponents say was a questionable way.
faced criminal charges
Rao was the first Prime Minister to face criminal charges. The three cases in which he faced trial include the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MP bribery scandal, the St Kitts fraud case and the Lakhubhai Pathak fraud case involving controversial Tantrik Chandraswami. However, he was proven clean in all three cases.
He got relief in the Lakhubhai Pathak case, shortly before his death on 23 December 2004 at the age of 83. After being implicated in the ‘Hawala’ scandal, Rao came under attack from his own party colleagues and opposition leaders. His economic reforms agenda mainly focused on liberalization, privatization, globalization, often referred to as LPG.
The country came out of the foreign exchange crisis.
The Rao-Manmohan Singh duo is credited with taking the country out of a serious foreign exchange crisis. However, the most significant events of his rule include the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya in December 1992 and the nationwide communal riots that followed. He was the Union Home Minister during the riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and has even been held responsible for criminal inaction.
In 1993, a year after the securities scam, Harshad Mehta created a sensation when he was alleged to have handed over a suitcase containing Rs 1 crore to Rao at his residence. It took some time for Rao to come out of this political crisis. Several scams made his government unpopular, after which the Congress was defeated in the Lok Sabha elections of May 1996.
Was proficient in many languages
After Sonia Gandhi took charge of the party, Lok Sabha Elections Didn’t fight. After this, Rao started writing again. He wrote ‘The Insider’, a semi-autobiography of over 700 pages, which was released by his arch-political rival but close friend and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A literary gem in Hindi, Rao was fluent in several languages including Spanish.
Taking inspiration from Rajiv Gandhi, Rao rapidly adopted technology. When he became addicted to computers, he was more than 60 years old. He used to spend hours on the computer at a time when most political leaders were not even computer literate. He was the one who gave the idea of Navodaya Vidyalaya Scheme.
India-US relations progressed rapidly during Rao’s tenure following a summit meeting with then US President Bill Clinton in Washington in 1994. Rao loved music, cinema and theatre, while he had a special interest in Indian philosophy and culture. He was also interested in writing stories and political commentary, learning languages, writing poems in Telugu and Hindi and literature.