I am programmed to sleep on the back
seat of cars. So I was surprised to be awake at
Mehdipatnam while being driven to Hyderabad airport.
As the car was about to get on to the new 11.6 km
elevated expressway that has eliminated the
commuting pain to the new airport, I noticed a sign.
In white on blue, it said ‘P.V. Narasimha Rao
Elevated Expressway’.
I felt happy. At last I saw a project of
significance being named after a person of
consequence. The fact that it is in a state ruled by
the Congress is entirely due to the late Y.S.
Rajashekhar Reddy, then chief minister of Andhra
Pradesh, who knew the importance of this son of the
soil.
The Congress has done what it can to belittle
Narasimha Rao as the tenth Prime Minister of India
and erase his positive achievements from the party’s
collective memory. When Rao died in Delhi on
December 2004, it refused to let his body lie in the
AICC headquarters; moreover, the Congress-led
government denied the family’s request to have a
burial plot (samadhi) on the banks of the Yamuna —
thus showing that Charan Singh, Devi Lal and Zail
Singh deserved more important cenotaphs in
independent India than Rao. It was Rajashekhar Reddy
who insisted that Rao’s body be cremated with full
state honours in Hyderabad.
For the Congress, Narasimha Rao is like Lord
Voldemort of the Harry Potter series:
‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ except to apportion
blame. Therefore, in Congress-speak, Rao had nothing
to do with launching of India’s economic reforms
that dismantled much of the dysfunctional licence-control-permit
raj and planted the seeds of 9 per cent growth; and
everything to do with the Shibu Soren-Jharkhand
Mukti Morcha bribery scandal and the demolition of
the Babri Masjid in December 1992. Given the short
memories of India’s increasingly young populace, the
assumption is that Rao’s positives will be soon
forgotten; while his failures will be raked up
whenever convenient.
Step back a bit and think of what Rao did in his
first two years as the head of a minority
government. And in doing so, remember that he was
not a natural dyed-in-wool economic reformer. First,
he appointed Manmohan Singh, then a pure technocrat,
as his Finance Minister; gave him the rope; and
politically covered his flanks. Few remember to two
sharp devaluations within a month of Rao coming to
office. Fewer still remember the visceral dislike
that India had for devaluation since the failure of
Indira Gandhi’s 1966 experiment. Yet, Manmohan Singh
was allowed to do it. Who gave him cover? Narasimha
Rao.
Think of the things that Singh did under the
patronage of Rao. Slashing tariff rates from an
average of 85 per cent to 25 per cent in three
years; knocking off most quantitative controls on
imports; ridding India of the Controller of Capital
Issues; creating Sebi; opening up India’s market to
foreign institutional investors; encouraging foreign
direct investments in ways that were unimaginable a
few years earlier; putting an end to the Industrial
Development (Regulation) Act; dramatically reducing
the span of industries under licensing; creating
much greater competition than ever before; and most
of all, creating the space for Indian entrepreneurs
to unleash their long dormant animal spirits and
rediscover their faith in doing business in India.
I can go on and on. It isn’t necessary. Narasimha
Rao was not goodness personified. But he was a great
prime minister of the time. What Manmohan Singh is
today has much to do with the support that he got
from old pouty lips. If you don’t believe me, go
back to the days of Harshad Mehta when the JPC was
screaming for Singh’s blood and Rao stood rock
steady behind his finance minister.
Let me end with a longish quote.
“From the point of view of the Congress leadership,
Rao’s problem was not just that he was not a
Nehru-Gandhi, it was also that as prime minister he
did not genuflect enough to the Nehru-Gandhis... Now
that the Nehru-Gandhis once more control both party
and government, Narasimha Rao has become the great
unmentionable within Congress circles. I should
modify that statement — Rao can be mentioned only if
it is possible to disparage him. Thus his
contributions to economic growth and to a more
enlightened foreign policy are ignored, while his
admittedly pusillanimous attitude towards the kar
sevaks in Ayodhya is foregrounded... To forget his
achievements, but to remember his mistakes, is a
product of cold and deliberate calculation.” I
didn’t write this. Ramachandra Guha did.
Hark to Act 3, scene 2 of Julius Caesar: “The evil
that men do lives after them; The good is oft
interred with their bones”. So it is with Narasimha
Rao. Which is why the expressway made me happy.
Thank God, at least someone in India didn’t
slavishly forget.
Published: Business World, August 2010