There comes an occasion when circumstances shape a man. There also comes an occasion when man shapes circumstances. But it’s not always that both work in tandem, shaping each other to an extent that both enter their selves into the books of history as one. In the Indian context, 1991 was the year when circumstances were at play for PV Narasimha Rao and Rao was in equal measure active to define a year that has for many observers of business and politics become as noteworthy as the collapse of the Soviet Union or the awakening of the Chinese economy pursuant to Mao Zedong’s departure. It is, therefore, appropriate that Sanjaya Baru’s new book is titled, 1991: How PV Narasimha Rao Made History.
If one is expecting a deep insight into the former Prime Minister’s life and politics, one will not find it in Baru’s book. For that, one refer to Vinay Sitapati’s remarkable biography, also released recently. 1991 is more of a brush-stroke than an elaborate painting, an enticing but pithy narrative. Nonetheless, it effectively captures those moments when history was being made for both 1991 and Rao. Baru’s long association with many principal players of the time and his access to several others by virtue of being a journalist, adds that extra touch and makes up for his (deliberate) decision to not meander into details. His idea was to capture history as it was made, and history does not need verbiage; when history is made, it’s there for everyone to see.
It does seem like destiny had determined that 1991 and Rao would be intertwined. It could well have been 1991 and Chandra Shekhar. Only six months before Rao came into the scene and went on to rewrite the rules of the game for the country, both economically and diplomatically, the once Young Turk had the opportunity to do what Rao set out to later do. And he would have, if he had enough time. Baru writes, “Unlike VP Singh and Rajiv Gandhi, Chandra Shekhar was willing to take political risks. If IMF support was not forthcoming, he would do whatever he could to prevent default” (of India missing out on its international financial obligations). But the Congress did not allow his Government (with Yashwant Sinha as Finance Minister) to present the Budget which would have been a game-changer in the way Manmohan Singh’s Budget under Rao’s leadership became.
Rajiv Gandhi’s coterie never allowed Chandra Shekhar to settle down. Baru gives one instance of this devious game. He quotes Ml Fotedar as claiming that President R Venkataraman “expressed caution against choosing Chandra Shekhar (as Prime Minister) and made some adverse remarks about him”. But Venkataraman, in his autobiography has a different take, which exposes the Rajiv gandhi loyalists. He says, “Personally, I have high regard for Chandra Shekhar, for his rational views, progressive approach to the nation’s problems and his integrity.” Baru further writes that throughout the month of January (barely a month after Chandra Shekhar became Prime Minister), Rajiv Gandhi kept contemplating the withdrawal of support to the Government”. But the President would caution him against the move. He repeatedly told him not to escalate a political crisis for at least six months, so that the Government could negotiate a loan with the IMF and restore stability to the balance of payments.
And when Chandra Shekhar put in his papers, disgusted by the conduct of the Congress, there were desperate moves in the party to persuade him to change his stand. The Congress, which had expected him to crawl and not quit, send emissaries to him. Baru writes that when Sharad Pawar asked him to take back his resignation, saying that the Congress did not want him to go, Chandra Shekhar shot back, “Go back and tell him (Rajiv Gandhi) that Chandra Shekhar does not change his mind three times a day.” And thus followed the twist which led to a general election, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, and Rao’s emergence as Prime Ministerial choice.
Rao was an insider, but as much in a minority in his own party as Chandra Shekhar was from the outside. He faced the same challenges, economic and political. If the Congress had thought it could use Chandra Shekhar as a puppet, its senior leadership believed it could do so with Rao as well. Which is why Sonia Gandhi cleared his name. But by the time Rao took charge the economic situation had worsened. The way he went about repairing it, despite heading a minority Government, despite not having the backing of senior members of the Congress such as Arjun Singh and AK Antony, despite having a tense relationship with Sonia Gandhi, is a story oft told. Baru races through all of this, providing just enough details to complete the larger picture of an ordinary politician who rose to extraordinary heights, using guile, persuasion and hard common sense.
Baru has an interesting story when behind-scenes activities were on to elect a new leader after the election. He happened to meet Rao and asked him about reports in the Times of India that Sharad Pawar was tipped to be the Prime Minister. Rao, who had by then set in motion his own gameplan, remarked, “It is a Bombay newspaper. The editor is a Maharashtrian, the bureau chief is a Maharashtrian. All the reports are coming from Bombay. What else will they sayIJ” This was a lot of stuff for a person of few words. As the author says,” For a man who knew a dozen languages (he could fluently read, write and speak over half a dozen) and was known to have a series of romantic entanglements, he was surprisingly incommunicative in person.”
Rao’s handling of the economy has been written about extensively, but not enough attention has been paid to his management of politics. He turned a minority Government into a majority one, got his people into positions which helped him push his economic-political agenda ahead, he effectively sidelined the ones who acted at Sonia Gandhi’s behest, and cleverly cloaked his dramatic economic reforms, making them seem like continuations of the policies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The last one particularly was amusing, because what Rao did actually was to dismantle and destroy completely the Nehru-Gandhi economic legacy and replace it with a modern one which continues to pay dividend to this day.
On the diplomatic front too, his achievements were no less startling. It was during Rao’s tenure that the India-Israel relationship was elevated to the diplomatic level, giving the ties a formality that Prime Ministers before him baulked at. Baru writes, “Israel opened new doors for India in the United States. The powerful Jewish lobby in the US held the key to many doors in the corridors of power.” He build bridges with Southeast nations such as Malaysia and Singapore. In sum, Rao initiated what the Modi Government is actively pursuing today.
There is not much in the book that talks of the razing of the mosque at Ayodhya. This too happened during Rao’s tenure, and his critics hold to this day that he could have prevented it but did not. The jury is still out. But nobody in the Congress has held the Sikh massacres against Rajiv Gandhi, and so why should the party then have double standards for RaoIJ There is one thing that Rao did not but paved the path for his successor Atal Bihari Vajpayee to complete: Nuclear tests. Nobody is sure why he did not go for the tests when all preparations were complete and just his signal was needed.
Nonetheless, as Baru concludes aptly, “Two decades after he demoted office and a decade after his passing away, India is finally coming around to remembering him by the highs of his first year in office.” Few Prime Ministers before and after him can claim that credit.