Bharat Ratna for Narasimha Rao: The 10th PM who ushered in economic reforms

PV Narasimha Rao

Former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, on February 9 for bringing economic reforms to India at a time when the country was grappling with both economic and political challenges.

Rao served as the tenth prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. His long political career saw him handling various important roles such as that of the external affairs minister, home minister, defence minister, and chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

“As a distinguished scholar and statesman, Narasimha Rao Garu served India extensively in various capacities. He is equally remembered for the work he did as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Union minister, and as a Member of Parliament and Legislative Assembly for many years. His visionary leadership was instrumental in making India economically advanced, laying a solid foundation for the country's prosperity and growth,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X.

Born on June 28, 1921, in Karimnagar, Telangana,  Rao remained a staunch Congressman throughout his career that spanned over six decades. Apart from his mother tongue Telugu, the advocate was a polyglot who could speak in seven languages, including Urdu, Sanskrit, Tamil, English and Spanish. In the book , To The Brink and Back, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh stated that Rao’s mastery over Sanskrit was the highpoint of his speech in Parliament during the vote of confidence faced by the then government in July 1991.

He became a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in 1951. In 1957, he became a member of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly after winning from Manthani. He represented the same constituency in 1962, 1967 and 1972.

In 1962, Rao became a minister in the Andhra Pradesh government and in 1971,  he took over as the Chief Minister. He remained the CM till 1973.

In 1977, Rao entered national politics after winning from Andhra Pradesh’s Hanamkonda parliamentary constituency.

In 1990, he came to know that then Congress chief Rajiv Gandhi was planning a transition to a younger Cabinet, according to The Man Who Remade India: A Biography of PV Narasimha Rao by Vinay Sitapati. “These whispers resonated with Rao’s own exhaustion with politics. He had won eight consecutive elections, and at sixty-nine, was getting old for the ingratiating namaste,” Sitapati wrote in the book.

After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination on May 21, 1991, Rao became the Congress chief. The next month, when the party won 232 of 487 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, Rao became the prime minister.

He is credited for  bringing many economic reforms in the country, particularly for dismantling the Licence Raj. When he became the PM, India's economic crisis was threatening the macro-economic stability of the country. His government immediately launched several economic reforms. It was during Rao's tenure  that Manmohan Singh became the finance minister.

Rao was a six-time MP and died at the age of 83 in 2004.