P.V. Narsimha Rao-The Pride of India

When India was on the verge of exhaustion of its foreign reserves in  June 1991, which might have lasted only 3 weeks and international financing organizations like the world bank and IMF stopped assistance, India was facing the worst financial crisis in its recorded history due to the wide gap between imports and exports resulting in fiscal imbalances a 60-year-old was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India and he put India's gold reserves as collateral and got a loan of $2.2 B from the world bank. He happens to be P.V.Narsimha Rao who previously worked as India's foreign affairs, Defence, and Industries minister. He is also regarded as "The father of Indian Economic Reforms". 

 

Later, starting in July 1991 major economic reforms were formulated under Mr. Rao's leadership. He appointed Manmohan Singh who went on to become Prime minister as his finance minister. 

Major reforms undertaken by them are:

- They liberalized the Indian economy and opened up India's equity markets to FPI's and FDI's in 1992.

- Introduced SEBI act 1992 and gave SEBI the legal authority over the security market.

- Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on the share of foreign capital in joint ventures from 40 to 51% with 100% foreign equity permitted in priority sectors.

- They started the National Stock Exchange (Nifty) in 1994 and it emerged as India's largest exchange in 1996.

- Streamlined procedures for FDI approvals in indigenous markets. 

All these steps revived growth and its foreign reserves grew from $132 million from 1991-92 to a brawny $5.3B in 1995-96. 

(*  To understand these terms kindly visit our previous article here )

Rao's foreign policy was also exceptional as he made crucial agreements with China, Pakistan during his tenure, and also sent the then opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee to UN for a conference to represent India. He also made the opposition party member Subramanium Swamy as the Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade during 1994-96.

He was also acclaimed for the relations he made with Western Europe to revive the economy and helped Isreal open its embassy in New Delhi. 

Rao under his tenure increased the spending on the military to strengthen our capabilities with the addition of modern technologies.  

Rao also was instrumental in India's progress as a Nuclear powerhouse. Abdul Kalam also mentioned the impact of Rao in India's Nuclear test which took place in Pokhran 1998 that these tests would have happened in 1996 itself, but with the end of Rao's tenure, they got delayed.

Narasimha Rao had the proficiency in 17 languages and was an inspirational personality who always believed in" learning is a never-ending process". His interest and willingness to promote the IT sector in the country paved the way for today's Silicon Valley in Bengaluru and many IT hubs in the country. According to his close sources Rao used to develop his skill at the computers and also had decent expertise in computer programming.

Be it any sector Rao in which drew his attention he made major reforms in all of those. Implementation of Open-jails to help prisoners in pursuing higher studies or be it the introduction of Navodaya Vidyaniketans across the country to aid learning of under-privileged with structural changes are just a few feathers on his cap.

He possessed great literary skills and also translated famous Telugu text Veyipadgalu by Kavi Vishwanatha Satyanarayana into Hindi as Sahasraphan. He also archived all his experiences, memories, and his literary skill in his autobiography The Insider.

Because of his honest and straight forward approach towards any particular issue, he suffered backlash within his own Congress party and although he won in the '96 elections from Odisha his party was defeated by the BJP alliance. This prompted INC  to revoke Rao from his position as  INC president.

He breathed his last on 23 December 2004. INC refused to allow his body in its office in Delhi, later the body was shifted to Jubliee Hall in Hyderabad, where his supporters and party men bid farewell to him.

P.V.Narsimha Rao is one of the very few political leaders in India who dedicated his life to the well being of his country. He is certainly a front-runner for India's highest civilian award the Bharat Ratna.

This Year we cherish and remember the great departed soul in his Birth Centenary Celebrations from 28-6-2020 to 28-6-2021.

Abhishek Reddy