Half Lion

Title: Half Lion – How P. V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India

Author: Vinay Sitapati

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9780670088225

Pages: 391

Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao (1921 – 2004) was the first Indian prime minister outside the Nehru family who had lasted a full term in office. He assumed office at a time of great upheaval not only in India but abroad too. Kashmir and Punjab were rife with militancy and LTTE cadres were treading roughshod over Tamil Nadu as part of their insurgency in Sri Lanka. The country’s foreign exchange reserves were at the very bottom of the pit. Its long term ally, the Soviet Union, was visibly crumbling under the crushing weight of communism. The Shah Bano alimony and Ayodhya issues had vitiated the atmosphere. It was a tough time even for a politically strong man to start. Rao was not one, yet when he demitted office five years later, India was a far better place. The central theme of this book is about understanding how Narasimha Rao achieved so much despite having so little real power and influence. It also explains how Rao tweaked the right knobs of the system to bring about the world’s second largest middle class. Vinay Sitapati is a political scientist, journalist and lawyer. He teaches at Ashoka University and writes for the Indian Express.

Narasimha Rao is remembered for his procrastination and indecision in matters of vital interest. Humorous epithets were cast on him such as ‘analysis till paralysis’, ‘when in doubt, pout’, ‘symbol of procrastination, delay and the status quo’, ‘charisma of a dead fish’ and ‘death is not a precondition to rigor mortis’. Sitapati has been successful in dispelling such long accumulated cobwebs on Rao’s intellectual caliber. He was quick and sharp in making a decision and when he dithered, it was not because he was unable to tell good policy from bad, but because sometimes the correct policy didn’t make good politics. This is especially poignant in the Ram Janmabhumi issue. Constitutionally, Rao had to heed the advice of the governor and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who were insistent that the disputed structure at Ayodhya would be safe and there was no need of enforcing central rule in the state. But when it was demolished by karsevaks a few days later, politicians accused him of inaction and bayed for his blood. On the economic sphere too, as protests mounted, the pace of reforms slowed by 1995 in view of the elections scheduled for the next year. The insurance reform bill had to wait twenty years to see the light of day when Narendra Modi made it into his kitty of reforms in 2015. Rao’s triple mantra of devaluation, trade liberalization and delicensing became tainted with corruption scandals by mid-1990s. Harshad Mehta and Enron scams took place. Mehta in fact alleged that he had paid Rs. 1 crore directly to Rao. The welfare, power and labour sectors were where Rao could not do anything. India’s foreign policy was, however, moved away from Nehruvian idealism to a more realist and pragmatic pursuit of national self-interest. He was also instrumental in developing the nuclear devises and keeping it ready for testing. Sitapati argues that logistical and technical issues prevented him from testing it.

Narasimha Rao was not a charismatic leader. Never in his career did the crowds eagerly thronged the maidan to listen to him. He was always in a half-smirk, neither fully committed to a smile nor fully to a frown. His political weakness endeared him to the Nehru family who wanted a protégé. He was made the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh to run Indira’s writ. But when he overstepped his mandate and announced land reforms, he was summarily thrown out to political exile for a while. Rao personally lost 1000 out of his 1200 acres of ancestral farmland due to the ceiling on individual possession envisaged in the act. When he was made the home minister in Rajiv’s cabinet after Indira’s assassination, he was bypassed in the measures to suppress anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. Rajiv’s office directly controlled the police while Rao was forced to keep a studied silence. A large part of the blame for the riots which killed 2733 Sikhs must thus be apportioned to Rajiv Gandhi.

When one considers how Rao transformed India, it is imperative that a clear view of what existed before and what he brought in should be presented. The author makes a brilliant assessment of India’s economic woes in the pre-Rao era. He claims that it was Indira Gandhi and not her father who was responsible for the economic disaster. Nehru’s policy was somewhat agreeable in the post-World War period. However, by 1965, the thinking had changed when national economies began to open up in East Asia. But India remained impervious to ideas from abroad. Indira thundered on the economic front with three draconian measures designed to thwart entrepreneurs in the country – large parts of the economy was reserved for public sector enterprises, limited the size of business houses so that they did not threaten the hegemonic power of the Congress party through licenses, anti-monopoly laws, harsh labour laws and nationalization of banks and finally by isolating India from the global market. The hallowed term ‘self-reliance’ had also become a byword for mediocrity. The economic collapse caused the growth rate to tumble leading to welfare schemes getting unable to make a dent in poverty. This was not missed by experts in the government. By the mid-1980s, policymakers had become convinced of the need for economic liberalization. What was sorely missed was a political environment to support them. Rajiv Gandhi had begun some reforms in 1985, but that sputtered to a stop two years later when he became embroiled in the Bofors corruption deal.

The book ruefully portrays the morass the country had fallen into by the early 1990s. Rajiv’s lavish policy of deficit financing required overseas short-term loans to be taken and repayment was due. By mid-1991, the country possessed foreign exchange reserves worth only two weeks of imports whereas the minimum safe level was funds for three months of imports. A default on external debt obligations was round the corner. To add insult to injury, the IMF required India to physically transfer 21 tons of solid gold from its coffers to that of the Bank of England in London as surety to a loan. Contrary to many people think, the ‘solution’ to the economic problem was not devised by Manmohan Singh who was Rao’s trusted finance minister and a world-renowned economist. Sitapati claims that the blueprint for economic reforms was prepared by senior bureaucrats and handed over by Naresh Chandra, the Cabinet secretary, to Rao a day prior to swearing in. It talked of fiscal discipline, dismantling trade barriers and removing the licenses, permits and anti-monopoly laws that tightly bound domestic entrepreneurs. Not only that, Manmohan Singh was only the second choice of Rao. I G Patel, a former RBI governor and director of the London School of Economics, was the first, but he politely declined the offer. Thus the mantle fell on Singh who got a free hand to dislodge arcane regulations which he himself was also partly instrumental for implementing in the Indira era. The Rao-Singh team did wonders. Within just a month after swearing in, the currency was devalued by 20 per cent, a new industrial policy that scrapped the license-quota-permit system was announced and the first budget did away with many controls that unnecessarily throttled the economy. In ten months’ time, reserves grew to comfortable levels, enough for six months of imports.

The change in fortunes of a politician happens fast and totally unforeseen. This book narrates it in good detail. Rao was denied a party ticket to contest the 1991 elections. That also meant the end of his political career – he was already seventy. He was to turn to spirituality as the head of a Hindu ashram at Courtallam in Tamil Nadu. Then everything changed on that fateful night of May 21, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi’s death by a suicide squad of the LTTE catapulted Rao to the most powerful chair in India. However, managing his widow Sonia Gandhi was a tiresome task. Not content with donating Rs. 100 crores of tax payers’ money to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rao conferred the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour on Rajiv and even extended elite commando protection to Sonia’s family. As prime minister, he spoke to her on phone twice a week, visited her every week and obliged her whims in the party and government. However, by mid-1993, rifts developed. When Sonia accused him on the slow progress of the investigation into Rajiv’s death, he stopped meeting her altogether. After Sonia became Congress president in 1998, Rao – the person and his legacy – was wiped clean from its history books. He was denied a party ticket for the 1999 elections. When Rao died in 2004, the Nehru family plotted to deny him a place for eternal rest in Delhi. Even his body was not given a chance to lie in state in the Congress party headquarters.

The book neatly argues its case for rehabilitating Narasimha Rao to the rightful place he deserves in the pantheon of Indian leaders. This is mostly hindered by the opposition from the Congress party – Rao’s own party – which is motivated by spiteful sycophants of the Nehru family who cannot digest the fact that Rao was the only Congress prime minister not from the Nehru family, yet managed to complete his full term in office. The author had access to the diary and personal recordings of Rao, which helped him bring out a book that presents some new facts unknown to anybody. A good number of photographs are included, as also a comprehensive section of end-notes and a good index.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star