prasad1
Active member
There are interesting disclosures in Vinay Sitapati's excellent book on Narasimha Rao (Half-Lion), in which he spells out how Rao was very careful to not push himself in front of the klieg lights, partly as a matter of strategy and partly out of wiliness -- to deflect criticism on to others if the whole thing failed.
It was the Rao-Manmohan Singh duo which used the external liquidity crisis as an opportunity to introduce more sweeping structural reform than previously contemplated -- pushing the envelope on industrial and trade policy, disinvestment, freeing interest rates, allowing private mutual funds, opening up to foreign investment, and tackling subsidies.
Sometimes this was in the face of opposition from key officials. They followed this up with financial sector reform and sweeping changes to the capital market.
Unfortunately, Manmohan Singh refuses to put pen to paper and tell the story from his unique vantage point. What we know from Sitapati's book is the skill with which Rao dealt with the task of political management, and not just within the Congress party -- among other things, he invited Sinha to join the Congress!
A telling anecdote relates to how Dr Singh had got upset at the barrage of criticism being fired at him from the Opposition benches. Rao then had a word with Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
At a meeting that followed, Vajpayee told Dr Singh that it was the duty of the Opposition to oppose and criticise, but he should disregard that and go ahead with what he was doing.
One wishes that today's 'take no prisoners' brand of politics would give way to an understanding of the national interest that is shared by both government and Opposition.http://www.rediff.com/business/report/who-were-the-real-heroes-of-the-1991-reforms/20160809.htm
