Most of the teenagers aren’t aware of PV Narashima Rao (Either know him as just another PM of the early 90’s or don’t know him at all). I think he is one of the most adaptive, seasoned & gutsy Politician after Sardar Patel and now Narendra Modi. I also think the nation owes a lot of gratitude to him and his works, but most of the new politicians hardly see him as an inspiration. Worst part was when he passed away in 2004, his body was not allowed inside the AICC building (as the AICC Supremo didn’t wanted) and was cremated in Hyderabad even though his children wanted him to be cremated in New Delhi (as his vast contribution to the Central Government). 

So what’s so special about him?

Let’s find out!

Incumbency of an adaptive communist – Pamulaparthi Venkata Narashima Rao

The year was 1991 and the baby boomers and Gen-X can still remember the news of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE as if it was yesterday. This tragedy wholly altered the paradigm of the oldest majority party – Indian National Congress; the flag bearer of Nepotism in Indian Politics(Actually I borrowed this line from Kangana Ranaut 😉). As a smart politician and a right hand man of Indira Gandhi, he knew the inside out of how the INC worked. As no one worthy from the Gandhi Family to take charge of the party, PV Narashima Rao saw this problem as an opportunity (which is very common in Politics and business) to lead the party and by default became the 9th Prime Minister of India.

Young Narashima Rao was a devout communist from Andhra Pradesh for almost 3 decades, and was totally against the capitalist and caste based oppression and harassment, he was a farmer friendly and a non-biased politician. A Karl Marx ideologist who believed in robin-hoodism - Taking it from the rich and giving it to the poor.

Liberalization, Privatization & Globalization - 1991

When PV Narashima Rao succeeded Rajiv Gandhi post his assassination was bombarded with a huge national problem of insufficient funds to clear importers due to the strong prevailing of socialism. India at that time was too much dependent on foreign funding and commodities as there was no free trade and too much of governmental coercion, red tapism & Bureaucracy over private Companies and India was considered one of the worst place for foreign investments for the above said reasons. Even though we had a lot of potential we couldn’t work towards successful growth. Some facts of the early 90’s:-

• We only had 3 weeks of Gold reserve as collateral to pay to our trade counterpart. Viz., if we didn’t pay our trade counterpart all the gold would disappear and India would be a bankrupt nation post 3 weeks. Assuming India would be like Croatia/ Yugoslavia or even worse be like Syria today, considering the situation of China’s trade domination.
• Too many trade unions in the PSUs hampering productivity as well as National Industrial Output.
• Red-Tape, Bureaucracy and corruption at its peak – the infamous ‘License Raj’.
• High Population with no/ limited jobs.
• GDP Growth was a minuscule 3% vis-a-vis today’s growth of over 7%.
• High Taxation for Private Companies.

The only solution to these problems was Capitalism a.k.a. “FREE TRADE” and maximum control of socialism. Hence the concept of Liberalizing new businesses from obtaining a license to payable and receivables were eased out. This led to private companies abroad to establish their infrastructure and plants in India bringing in foreign funds/ Capital and Employment to our people, which in-turn helped our established companies to do business outside country showing off our talent and business skills to the world which made us a globalized country. Mind you - that this concept of Liberalization, Privatization & Globalization was just an experiment done by the Narashima Rao government which resulted in a grand success in a scale as big as India. The brains of Dr. Manmohan Singh and Dr. Subramaniam Swamy led this experiment of transforming India from a Socialist disaster to a Capitalist neonatal. 

A lot of people and politicians were against these policies, but PV Narashima Rao stood as an iron-wall to restrain all communist and socialist ideologies that could have hampered our economy and its people. This operation was a total transformation of socialist to a capitalist which actually shows that nation’s interest is paramount that individual/ group ideologies. 

Gratitude

We should never forget leaders like him (and of course his team) that brought such a robust solution and transformed a country like India from almost being broke to the 5th largest economy in the world today. His audacity to refrain dirty politics from nepotism, setting up the right team, implementing bodacious plans from grass root to the highest hierarchies proves his ability as a seasoned craftsman of political leadership. The reason all the Millennials are being highly educated, access to internet, smart phones, healthy jobs, adoption of western sophistication, encouraging entrepreneurship so that we can compete with foreigners are byproducts of the LPG act of 1991. This symbolizes equality of opportunity for every citizen of India to be whatever he/she intends to be. A pioneer like PV Narashima Rao truly deserves the highest respect and Gratitude and should to be remembered throughout our time.