New Delhi: Former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao has been posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honours. The Congress stalwart is credited with bringing economic reforms to India in 1991, which paved the way for the country’s economic revival.
Who is PV Narasimha Rao?
PV Narasimha Rao or Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao served as the prime minister of India between 1991 and 1996. He is best known for introducing sweeping economic reforms that liberalised the Indian economy.
PV Narasimha Rao was born on June 28, 1921, near Karimnagar, in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Rao went to Pune’s Fergusson College. He then attended the Universities of Bombay and Nagpur, from where he received a degree in law. He is also known as a distinguished scholar who was fluent in many languages.
His foray into politics began when he joined the Congress Party as an activist to fight for independence from Britain. He was also a member of the Andhra Pradesh state legislative assembly. Before becoming India’s prime minister, Rao represented Andhra Pradesh in the Lok Sabha. He was also the foreign minister.
After Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, the Congress (I) Party picked Rao as its chief and he then assumed charge as the prime minister. Rao started on his mission to reshape India’s economy by transforming it into a free-market.
He sought to reduce government control, restricting subsidies and privatising several public industries. The reforms — heralded with the future prime minister, Manmohan Singh as Rao’s finance minister — came to be known as liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation.
In May 1996, after the Congress Party lost the parliamentary elections by a huge margin, Rao resigned as prime minister.
Rao died of a heart attack on December 23, 2004.
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