For my generation of economic journalists this is a month of nostalgia and columns are pouring out everywhere. Twenty years ago this month, we drove around New Delhi in our second-hand Fiat cars chasing stories about a balance of payments crisis, an unprecedented devaluation of the rupee, the mortgaging of gold bullion and, of course, the famous Budget speech of July 24, 1991, with the announcement of the end of the so-called “licence-permit raj”.
It was a heady time. India was in the throes of a political crisis, with a former prime minister assassinated, a dark horse on the verge of retirement sworn in as head of a minority government, a professional economist becoming finance minister, and so on. The world outside was exciting too. We had just been taking in the meaning of the Tiananmen Square incident and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait when a coup in Moscow imploded a 70-odd-year-old regime. Soviet-style communism, a system my generation had come to accept as a given, had disappeared.
Newspapers and magazines have been full of reports this past week – and more will appear in the coming weeks – about the significance of what happened and its impact. Quite understandably, they will celebrate the role of people like Manmohan Singh, C Rangarajan, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Rakesh Mohan, P Chidambaram and so on.
The person who gave them all the required political cover to go ahead, and do what neither an Indira Gandhi nor a Rajiv Gandhi was yet willing to barely a few years earlier, was none other than a lonely traditional Congress politician called Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao, known as PV in his home state Andhra Pradesh.
On the morning of June 20, 1991, I drove into PV’s empty courtyard on New Delhi’s Motilal Nehru Marg. He was seated in his trademark dhoti and vest, sipping tea with the late Bhagwat Jha Azad. His loyal assistant Khandekar was the only other soul around. I asked PV if there was anything to the rumour that the Congress legislature party would elect him its leader.
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“I have retired!” he said, “and The Times of India thinks Sharad [Pawar] will be prime minister.” A news report to that effect had been filed by the late Subhash Kirpekar. We all smiled. I had my cup of tea and drove to work. Later in the day, what was rumoured, happened.
I chose to go to his house immediately and get a few quotes to file a story. The police had cordoned off the entire road. Hundreds of people had gathered. There was much slogan shouting and a few people tried to enter the house. A Congress activist was trying to catch the attention of Jairam Ramesh, who was inside the compound. The retiring PV was all set to become PM!
Every year on June 28, the auditorium at New Delhi’s Andhra Bhavan fills up with a motley group that comes together to pay tribute to the memory of the former prime minister. An assortment of family members and friends and their hangers-on gather. Over the years, the number of recognisable faces has gone down. The one person who has never failed to turn up, and was present last week too, is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. No other representative of the Government of India and the Congress party ever turns up.
The afternoon PV died, in December 2004, Dr Singh was in Parliament. As he was walking out to reach his car, he told a group of journalists gathered in the corridor that Mr Rao was “like a father” to him. “Whatever politics I have learnt is because of him. When I was inducted into the Cabinet, I did not know much politics, even now I do not, but I learnt a lot from him,” Dr Singh confided.
The most important reform initiatives of the Narasimha Rao government were taken in the months between July 1991 and March 1992. When Dr Singh presented his second Budget in February 1992, the Rao government was still a minority government. Opposition to the initiatives was already gathering momentum not just within the Left opposition parties but also within the ruling Congress party. Arjun Singh and Vayalar Ravi had become the focal points of internal opposition within the Congress.
Sensing the mood of the party, PV convened a session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in April 1992 at Tirupati and delivered his famous speech on “The Tasks Ahead” in which he spoke of “The Middle Way” between free-market economics and state socialism, quoting Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in support of his policies.
In the para that follows, he spelt out a vision that has since come to be known as the strategy of “inclusive growth”.
“In the past ten months, our Government has initiated far-reaching fiscal and financial reforms. This was done in conformity with our Election Manifesto of 1991 which gives the main features of the reforms. It is remarkable that even when the Congress was in the opposition, the late Shri Rajiv Gandhi anticipated the economic crisis that was coming and incorporated clear and concrete remedial as well as positive measures in the Manifesto. The Government has introduced this reform programme with considerable dynamism. Simultaneously, we have also taken measures to mitigate any hardship likely to be caused in the process. We propose to continue, in fact increase, the thrust of our employment, poverty alleviation and welfare programmes. I must, however, add that these are two parallel and complementary programmes. Between the two of them all sections of the people are covered, at all levels of the social pyramid, with particular emphasis on the base of the pyramid. As a political party, the dynamic leadership and clear voice of the Congress are needed for the upliftment of the oppressed, even while we carry out reforms in the economy as a whole.”