Remembering PV Narasimha Rao, the man who revived India's economy

New Delhi, Jun 27: PV Narasimha Rao, known as the architect of modern India, successfully steered the country during difficult times by introducing economic reforms.

The country witnessed progress and a qualitative change due to the economic reforms program and in foreign policy, internal security, and others during Narasimha Rao's tenure.

On his birth anniversary, let us remember the man, who had the courage to undertake bold reforms that forever changed the course of India's economy.

P.V. Narasimha Rao who was born on 28 June 1921 was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known as the "Father of Indian Economic Reforms".

His administration was successful in overseeing a major economic transformation and several home incidents affecting national security of India.

He employed Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister to embark on historic economic transition.
With Rao's mandate, Manmohan Singh launched India's globalisation angle of the reforms that implemented the International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies to rescue the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse.

Rao was also referred to as Chanakya for his ability to steer economic and political legislation through the parliament at a time when he headed a minority government.

Rao's term as Prime Minister was an eventful one in India's history. Besides marking a paradigm shift from the industrialising, mixed economic model of Jawaharlal Nehru to a market driven one, his years as Prime Minister also saw the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a major right-wing party, as an alternative to the Indian National Congress which had been governing India for most of its post-independence history.

Rao's term also saw the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh when BJP's Kalyan Singh was Chief Minister, which triggered one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in the country since its independence.

Rao could speak 9 Indian languages Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada,Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu) and 8 foreign languages French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Greek, English, Latin and Persian.