The misunderstood leader 2

After the death of Rajiv Gandhi, when congress returned to power, finding him a successor and the new Indian prime minister was the problem that tormented the whole nation. After a lot of brainstorming, the CWC and the high command came up with a person who was virtually not heard of till then. He was none other than Mr.P V Narasimha Rao ,the person who was going to change India's perspective.
The new PM had a flurry of problems waiting for him, both internal and external. On one side, when the provinces of Kashmir and Punjab were being wrecked havoc by jihadis and sikh rebels, Indian economy altogether was facing major crisis with a high inflation, alarming imports to export ratio, and depleated foriegn exchange. But wilfully for us, the new guy was not one who gave up very soon. As any good manager, he started his work by inducting a new team, first memeber of which was the father of Indian economic reforms : Dr. Manmohan Singh (the then RBI governor was called upon to be the new finance minister). What happened next is history, India under Manmohan and PVN opened doors for FDIs & FIIs trying ard next five years to bring India back to her feet. PM under such circumstances had to be strict & tough, but this resulted in wide spread disgust against him in every possible arena. The supporting parties withdraw support and he had to finally buy an MP to protect his majority.
Narasimha Rao holds a lot of records. He was the person to get elected with the highest ever majority(around 7.5 lac votes), he was the PM who ruled with the lowest ever majority(1 MP in Lok Sabha). He was the PM who laid the base for our new age economic reforms, is believed to be the person who laid the base for Pokran nuclear test, was the only PM to have registered cases against him during his tenure( 3 cases...in all of which he was acquainted later on).Altogether we can call him a real loser, never got the credit for the great work he did. Even his own party deserted him after his tenure, the head office of which he left forever soon after his five year rule, only to be returned for a short respectful display as a cadaver.

The misunderstood leader

During one of those heated GD sessions we persued during our CAT coaching, at some point the topic drifted to Rajeev Gandhi. Surprisingly after the session our moderator started talking very emtionally about him. He highlighted the inability on his part to make decisions and held him responsible for 'Ayodhya'. Was it all true. Although Rajeev Gandhi is heavily criticized for his mismangement, I think we are forgetting his achievements. This reluctant politician who was responsible for the breaking up of many sections from congress was also the one resposible for the modernisation of our communication and transportation infrastructure. His techno-savy nature paved way for the entry of mobile phones to India which is an indespensible entity now. The youngest PM of India, the PM who ruled with maximum majority in Lok Sabha, also the PM who took largest world bank loans. We cant really blame him for that, our economy was in such a state. We were adamant about not allowing any FDIs or FIIs and our crude oil and defense import bills(thanks to our neighbour Pakistan) were always well above our meagre exports. So to persue modernisation, he had to go for loans. But its a golden achievement for him that India recorded a record economic growth of 10.5% in the last year of his rule. Needless to say he was efficient and far-sighted, but still couldnt manage India well. Simple answer, you cant expect a piolet to learn the intricacies & fallacies of Indian politics in a day and head a bunch of corrupt, crooked and cunning politicians with the help of an army of lazy, uninterested beaurocrats. Fianlly one of them or many of them under the one big one pulled him down & made a new party whose fragments are creating all sorts of problems in Indian politics now with their caste & religous vote banks.