LETS PAY TRIBUTE TO THIS LEGEND MR. PAMULAPARTHI VENKATA
NARSIMHA RAO, Today (28-June) being the birth anniversary of
P.V.Narasimha Rao
The former Prime Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, deserved to be honoured with the Bharat Ratna, though posthumously, for his contributions to economic reforms in India.
The only scholar prime minister of
India'
TELANGANA
MUDDU BIDDA – ARCHITECT OF MODERN INDIA- WHO CAN SPEAK 16 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
–INDIA”S FIRST AND ONLY TELANGANA PRIME MINISTER, AP’s first Chief Minister
from Telangana, Father of reforms ( including IT reform”– I repeat “IT reform
in Hyderabad aswell” ),His IT Revolution led India becoming the knowledge hub
of the World, A Linguist, Author, Scholar, Lawyer who gave up most of his own
inherited estate when he was requsted to carry out Land reform is finally
getting recognition in Telangana by Telangana Government, Instead of being
proud of him, He was forgotten by Congress and Telugu Desham Governments in
Andhra Pradesh. They never celebrated his birthday nor mourned on his death
day. What a shame. He was not given cremation space in Delhi and his body was
half burnt during his cremation in Hyderabad and congress and his own family
did not bother .
Probably the most under-rated leader, P.V.Narasimha Rao (nicknamed PV by
his friends) can be considered as one of the makers of modern India. If India
has managed to shed it’s image of snake charmers and turned into a major IT hub
and a promising economic superpower in the making, a significant part of the
credit for this transformation must go to PV due to his bold economic reforms.
Young PV
Born in 1921 on this date today (28-June), PV grew up in the Hyderabad
State under Nizam rule and completed a Master’s degree in law. By 1940s, when
freedom struggle was at it’s peak in the State of Hyderabad, Rao trained
himself as a guerrilla fighter to revolt against the Nizam and risked his life
because the Nizam’s army was instructed to shoot such freedom fighters at
sight. In his autobiography, PV mentions that on 15-Aug-1947, while the nation
was celebrating independence, PV was stranded in a forest trying to evade
bullets from the Nizam’s army. Eventually, PV and his guerrilla team survived
the gruesome war and after independence, joined full time politics.
PV with Indira Gandhi
Over the next few decades, PV rose up the political ladder and
by the early 1970s, he was identified by Indira Gandhi for his
political acumen and was requested to carry out the land reform act in which
fuedal landlords were convinced/compelled/forced to distribute their holdings
to landless peasants. During the process, PV gave up most of his own inherited
estate as well.
Fluent in more than 13 languages, well versed with subjects related to
economics, law, history, politics & arts, he was rightly called the scholar
among politicians. He was deeply respected among his intellectual circles and
these qualities helped him rise higher up the ladder to national level politics
based only on his talent and hardwork rather than family backgrounds or vote
banks.
However, by the late 1980s, PV had almost retired from politics but the
assasination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 helped him make a great comeback. As it
had always been typical of the Congress party to appoint a member of Gandhi
family as representative of the party, Sonia Gandhi was suggested to become the
party chief in a high level party meeting. But PV, a staunch believer in merit,
shot back saying: “Why should the Congress party be hitched to
the Nehru-Gandhi family like train compartments to the engine?“[3].
Senior leaders were shocked at this statement of PV and called him arrogant but
could not defend their stand of why only a Nehru-Gandhi family member had to be
made the party chief when there were already seasoned veterans like PV who were
not only greatly experienced in practical politics but proven & scholarly
as well.
1991 economic crisis
After Congress won the elections in 1991, PV was made the Prime Minister
and it was a paradigm shift because he was the first person outside the
Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as PM for full 5 years. Having said that, the year
1991 was the worst year (since independence) for anybody to assume PM office.
The collapse of Soviet Union had great repercussions across the world and India
being a socialist economy was severely affected. Nehru’s economic model which
was oriented towards Licence Raj, red tape & bureaucracy leading to large
scale corruption had resulted in 2-3% annual growth (which was mocked as “Hindu
rate of growth” by economists) and the subsequent protection of such model by
Indira Gandhi had led the nation into darkness and economic standstill [4].
Indian Gold reserves were airlifted to repay loans
In fact, when PV became the PM, the nation was on the verge of
bankruptcy. Due to high fiscal deficit as a result of closed economy for 4
decades, higher defence expenditure, unnecessary subsidies (mainly for vote
bank politics), rising debt payments and other factors, India began to rely on
external funds which led to a cycle of vicious borrowing from foreign banks. In
1991, all hell broke loose and India had run out of forex i.e When PV became
the PM, India was in a pathetic condition where it could sustain only for 15
days after which it had to declare bankruptcy. India had to airlift it’s 47
tonnes of Gold reserves as a pledge to IMF for a loan which had led to Indians
hanging their heads in shame!!
Serious & bold measures had to be taken up and the solution was to
open up the economy which was against the ideology of the Congress party which
had always adored Nehruvian economy and central planning. PV was in a fix
because on one side, if he wanted to keep his party happy, he had to allow the
economy to collapse and on the other hand, if he took up steps to revive the
economy, he would face the wrath of his party. Fortunately, he chose the latter
and to the shock of the Congress stalwarts, he initiated reforms. Dr. Manmohan
Singh, a renowned economic professor was invited by PV to form a committee to
formulate reforms in the best interest of the nation. Complete freedom & support
was given to Dr. Manmohan’s team and PV shielded the team from Congress party
so that they could do their jobs effectively. Within few months, the measures
began to bore fruits and the economy began to recover. A significant part of
the public sector was privatized, license raj was abolished leading to
entrepreneurship & competition, state control & red tape was reduced
and policies on foreign investments were modified to allow for more
investments.
A 3-min clip from an economics documentary highlights the situation and
subsequent economic liberalization in this Youtube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuPKtTEPQB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuPKtTEPQB8
These measures & reforms were broadly termed “Economic liberalisation
of India” [5] and one of the major side effect of it has been the IT revolution
which led to India becoming the Knowledge hub of the world. In a way, these
measures helped curb the brain drain because graduates who were leaving India
due to lack of opportunities began to reconsider their options because of the
in-house IT, BT & BPO revolutions and most of them stayed back in India and
some of them who had fled to US & Europe returned to India (Reverse brain
drain). Entrepreneurship took off in India [6]. The world began to take notice
of India for it’s high economic growth and IT sector which have been featured
on cover pages of TIME magazine as well [7]. All the above mentioned positive
outcomes would not have been possible if not for the bold measures taken by PV
who cared for the nation and not for his party. Due to these reasons, his own
party has been ignoring and degrading him and even today does not want to give
him the credit for his bold steps
Looking back in hindsight, one can say that India achieved political
independence in 1947 but had to wait till 1991 for economic independence. If
Mahatma Gandhi can be called the architect of India of 20th century, P. V.
Narasimha Rao can be called the architect of Modern India of the 21st century.
Today (28-June) being the birth anniversary of P.V.Narasimha Rao, let us
pay tribute to this legend who has now become a forgotten hero in his own
party. I urge everyone to share this article, spread this message and awareness
of PV among family members. We need leaders like PV who can put the interest of
nation above party’s interests.
PV
Narasimha Rao
Personal Details:
Narasimha Rao was
popularly known as PV.
P.V. Narasimha Rao had
“humble social origins”. He was born in 28 June 1921 at Laknepally village -Near
Narsampet in Warangal District to a Niyogi Telugu
Brahmin family. At the age of 3 years he was adopted and brought up
to Vangara village in the present-day Karimnagar district ofAndhra
Pradesh. His father P. Ranga Rao and mother Rukminiamma hailed from
agrarian families.
He studied Bachelor’s in the Arts college at the Osmania University and later on went
to Fergusson College now under University of Pune where he completed
a Master’s degree in law. His mother
tongue was Telugu and had an excellent command of Marathi.
In addition to eight Indian languages (Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Oriya, Marathi,
Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil), he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German,
Greek, Latin and Persian.
Really A Forgotten Prime Minister, Forgotten Chanakya of Modern India. I salute PV Sahab and you also for remembering him.
ReplyDeleteForget for forever this kutta he is swine gandi naali kaa kera haram ka jana saalo chanakya 😆 dekha tha kabhi praveen gaand me pv kaa danda dalvana hai koi baat ne ma daal duga vo bhosre vaala kutte ke mout mar gaya.
ReplyDeleteForget for forever this kutta he is swine gandi naali kaa kera haram ka jana saalo chanakya 😆 dekha tha kabhi praveen gaand me pv kaa danda dalvana hai koi baat ne ma daal duga vo bhosre vaala kutte ke mout mar gaya.
ReplyDelete