Half - Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India

by Vinay Sitapati

  26. Interview with G.V. Ramakrishna in Chennai, 2015.

  27. Full disclosure: Ahluwalia’s second son is a friend of the author.

  28. Yashwant Sinha, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: My Years as Finance Minister (New Delhi: Viking, 2007), 40.

  29. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  30. Interview with Jairam Ramesh in New Delhi, 2015.

  31. Sinha, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: My Years as Finance Minister, 26.

  32. Interview with Naresh Chandra in Delhi, 2015.

  33. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  34. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 7.

  35. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 354.

  36. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  37. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 8.

  38. T.N. Ninan, ‘Story of Two Devaluations’, Business Standard, 16 August 2013, http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/story-of-two-devaluations-113081601231_1.html.

  39. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 36.

  40. Note found amidst his private papers in 2015.

  41. ‘Step in Haste: Opposition’, Times of India, 2 July 1991, 1.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Note found amidst his private papers in 2015.

  44. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Letter found amidst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  47. His book, first published in 1993, gives some sense of his detailed rage at the licence raj. See Ashok V. Desai, My Economic Affair (New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Limited, second edition, 1994).

  48. Shaji Vikraman, ‘Commitment, quick decisions in making of new trade policy’, the Indian Express, 13 August 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/express-economic-history-series-commitment-quick-decisions-in-making-of-new-trade-policy/.

  49. Ibid.

  50. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 155.

  51. Ibid., 156.

  52. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  53. Aiyar, Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change, 849.

  54. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  55. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 77.

  56. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.

  57. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 83.

  58. Kalyani Shankar, ‘Industrial Licensing to go’, Hindustan Times, 12 July 1991.

  59. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 87.

  60. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 9.

  61. Entry on 16 July 1991 in Appointment Diary 1991, written by Rao’s secretary, Khandekar; found amidst his private papers in 2015.

  62. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington D.C., 2015.

  63. Shaji Vikraman, ‘Industrial policy and the importance of political context’, the Indian Express, 24 June 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/express-economic-history-series-industrial-policy-and-the-importance-of-political-context/.

  64. Tapan Dasgupta, ‘Cabinet okays industrial policy’, the Times of India, 24 July 1991, 1.

  65. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  66. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  67. Sinha, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: My Years as Finance Minister, 42.

  68. Interview with T.S.R. Subramanian in Noida, 2015. Full disclosure: he is my uncle.

  69. Sinha, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: My Years as Finance Minister, 44.

  70. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 155–56.

  71. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 104.

  72. Entry on 20 July 1991 in Appointment Diary 1991, written by Rao’s secretary, Khandekar; found amidst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  73. Letter found amidst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  74. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  75. Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, ‘Unsung Hero of the India Story’, 26 June, 2011, http://swaminomics.org/unsung-hero-of-the-india-story/.

  76. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 98.

  77. Ibid.

  78. ‘A budget, a briefcase and expectations: Finance ministers on budget day’, http://www.livemint.com/Multimedia/GyTLM3rVW8wPCsVA89j36H/A-budget-a-briefcase-and-expectationsFinance-ministers-on.html.

  79. 1991–92 Union Budget, para 1. Available at http://indiabudget.nic.in/bspeech/bs199192.pdf.

  80. Ibid., para 2.

  81. Ibid., para 16.

  82. Puja Mehra, ‘Liberalisation (1991–92)’, The Hindu, 7 July 2014, http://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/liberalisation-199192/article6186027.ece.

  83. 1991–1992 Union Budget, para 153. Available at http://indiabudget.nic.in/bspeech/bs199192.pdf.

  84. Entry on 24 July 1991 in Appointment Diary 1991; found amidst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  85. Editorial, the Times of India, 25 July 1991.

  86. ‘Singh’s new song’, The Economist, 27 July 1991, 52.

  87. Cover, India Today, 31 July 1991.

  88. ‘Anti-people, says opposition’, Times of India, 25 July 1991, 1.

  89. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 16.

  90. Ibid.

  91. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 164.

  92. Ibid., 158–59.

  93. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.

  94. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 72.

  95. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  96. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 110.

  97. Ibid., 60.

  98. Ibid., annexure 6.

  99. Hasan, Congress after Indira: Policy, Power, Political Change (1984–2009), 53.

  100. Ibid.

  101. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.

  102. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 382.

  103. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.

  104. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 103.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.

  107. Kapil Komireddi, ‘PV Narasimha Rao reinvented India—so why is he the forgotten man?’, the National, 19 May 2012, http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/pv-narasimha-rao-reinvented-india-so-why-is-he-the-forgotten-man.

  108. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 108.

  109. Interview with Mani Shankar Aiyar in New Delhi, 2015.

  110. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 366.

  111. Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India, 14.

  112. Ramesh, To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story, 123.

  113. Interview with Naresh Chandra in Delhi, 2015.

  114. James Manor, ‘The Congress party and the “Great Transformation”’, in Sanjay Ruparelia et al., Understanding India’s New Political Economy: A Great Transformation? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 204–21.

  115. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2014), 384.

  116. Devengshu Datta, ‘The Budgets That Shaped India’, Huffington Post, 28 February 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.in/devangshu-datta/budgets-that-shaped-india_b_6773966.html.

  117. From the Reserve Bank of India’s database on the Indian Economy, available at dbie.rbi.org.in.

  118. Interview with S. Rajgopal in Mumbai, 2015.

  119. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1992–1993, 161.

  120. Jeremy Adelman, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2013), 262.

  121. ‘At a Glance—India and the IMF’, available at https://www.imf.org/exter
nal/country/IND/rr/glance.htm.

  122. Interview with Tarun Das in New Delhi, 2015.

  8. GROWING THE ECONOMY, 1992–96

  1. Roger Boesche, ‘Moderate Machiavelli? Contrasting The Prince with the Arthashastra of Kautilya’, Critical Horizons 3, no. 2 (2002): 257–58.

  2. There is controversy on the date. Some scholars believe that it was more likely written in the 3rd century AD.

  3. For a discussion on these techniques, see Rashed Uz Zaman, ‘Kautilya: The Indian Strategic Thinker and Indian Strategic Culture’, Comparative Strategy 25:3, 231–47 (2006), 238.

  4. Akhilesh Pillalamarri, ‘Chanakya: India’s Truly Radical Machiavelli”, The National Interest, 29 January 2015, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chanakya-indias-truly-radical-machiavelli-12146.

  5. Boesche, ‘Moderate Machiavelli? Contrasting The Prince with the Arthashastra of Kautilya’, 260.

  6. Hasan, Congress after Indira: Policy, Power, Political Change (1984–2009).

  7. Interview with Kalyani Shankar in New Delhi, 201.

  8. Note from P.C. Alexander dated 27 March 1992, found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  9. Note from V.N. Gadgil, found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  10. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  11. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 380.

  12. Janak Singh, ‘Rao Swears by Nehru’, the Times of India, 17 April 1992, 1.

  13. A. Devarajan, ‘Tirupati Plenary—down memory lane’, The Hindu, 21 January 2006, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/tirupati-plenary-down-the-memory-lane/article3242772.ece.

  14. ‘Congress Economics’, the Times of India, 17 April 1992, 10.

  15. Interview with G.V. Ramakrishna in Chennai, 2015.

  16. Sucheta Dalal, ‘Harshad Mehta scam broke 20 years ago. What has changed?’ Moneylife, 3 May 2012.

  17. Chapter 25 of Niccolò Machiavelli (translator: Harvey Mansfield), The Prince (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, second edition, 1998).

  18. Dalal, ‘Harshad Mehta scam broke 20 years ago. What has changed?’, 3 May 2012.

  19. Edward A. Gargan, ‘Huge Financial Scandal Shakes Indian Politics’, the New York Times, 9 June 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/09/business/huge-financial-scandal-shakes-indian-politics.html.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Note found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  22. Gargan, ‘Huge Financial Scandal Shakes Indian Politics’.

  23. Dalal, ‘Harshad Mehta scam broke 20 years ago. What has changed?’.

  24. Interview with G.V. Ramakrishna in Chennai, 2015.

  25. Ibid.

  26. ‘Foreign Institutional Investors in India’, Indian Securities Market, A Review, November 2009, http://www.nseindia.com/content/us/ismr2009ch8.pdf.

  27. Deepak Korgaonkar and Puneet Wadhwa, ‘FIIs’ net investment in equities set to cross Rs 1 lakh cr in 2014’, Business Standard, 4 December 2014, http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/fiis-net-investment-in-equities-set-to-cross-rs-1-trillion-in-2014-114120400151_1.html.

  28. Interview with Pratap Mehta in New Delhi, 2015.

  29. Letter found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  30. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.

  31. Interviews with Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  32. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.

  33. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.

  34. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  35. Interview with Prabhakar Menon in Delhi, 2015.

  36. ‘India deploys 200,000 police as it braces for Hindu-Muslim race riots over 16th-century mosque ownership’, Daily Mail, 30 September 2010, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316466/Ayodhya-verdict-India-braces-Hindu-Muslim-riots-Babri-mosque-ownership.html

  37. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1992–1993, 302.

  38. Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India, 201.

  39. Hasan, Congress after Indira: Policy, Power, Political Change (1984–2009), 58.

  40. ‘IDFC and Bandhan make the cut for banking licences’, Business Standard, 3 April 2014, http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/rbi-grants-bank-licence-to-idfc-bandhan-114040200963_1.html.

  41. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond,120.

  42. Infosys website, available at http://www.infosys.com/investors/investor-services/Pages/FAQs.aspx.

  43. Data available at https://ycharts.com/companies/INFY/market_cap.

  44. Interview with Devesh Kapur (on phone) in the United States, 2015.

  45. Interview with Nandan Nilekani in Bangalore, 2015.

  46. Ibid.

  47. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1993–1994, 237.

  48. Ibid., 282.

  49. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao.

  50. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1993–1994, 422.

  51. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  52. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1993–1994, 24.

  53. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  54. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1993–1994, 131.

  55. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 185.

  56. See generally, Kohli, ‘Politics of Liberalization in India’.

  57. CII website, available at http://www.cii.in/about_us_History.aspx?enc=ns9fJzmNKJnsoQCyKqUmaQ==.

  58. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  59. Montek S. Ahluwalia, ‘Infrastructure Development in India’s Reforms’, 5, http://planningcommission.gov.in/aboutus/speech/spemsa/new/msa29.pdf.

  60. Ibid., 2.

  61. Ibid., 4.

  62. T.S. Ramakrishnan and T. Raghuram, ‘Evolution of Model Concession Agreement for National Highways of India’, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, July 2012, 4. Available at: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/assets/snippets/workingpaperpdf/5564292122012-07-01.pdf.

  63. Montek S. Ahluwalia, ‘Infrastructure Development in India’s Reforms’, 5.

  64. Data available at http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/electricity-production-from-coal-sources-percent-of-total-wb-data.html.

  65. Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India, 189.

  66. Ibid., 190.

  67. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1992–1993, 235.

  68. Waquar Ahmed, ‘From Militant Particularism to Anti-neoliberalism? The Anti-Enron Movement in India’, Antipode 44, no. 4, (2012): 1059–80.

  69. Singh (with Chopra), A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time: An Autobiography, 306.

  70. Ibid., 307.

  71. Dilip Bobb, ‘Fact or Fiction?’, India Today, 15 July 1993, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/securities-scam-harshad-mehta-claims-to-have-paid-rs-1-crore-to-narasimha-rao/1/303698.html.

  72. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 389.

  73. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi, 2015.

  74. Ibid.

  75. Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan, 386.

  76. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 123.

  77. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.

  78. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 123.

  81. Shanti Kumar, Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 4.

  82. Ibid., 4–5.

  83. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.

  84. Interview with Nalin Mehta in New Delhi, 2015.

  85. The Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting vs Cricket Association of Bengal, 1995, SCC (2) 161.

  86. Data available at http
://telecomtalk.info/total-number-tv-channels-india/139844/.

  87. World Bank data, available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR.

  88. ‘Narasimha Rao govt asked Tata to start airline, then backed out’, the Times of India, 31 January 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narasimha-Rao-govt-asked-Tata-to-start-airline-then-backed-out/articleshow/46073074.cms.

  89. Document found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  90. ‘Sukh Ram, Vittal duel stalls Telecom reforms’, Economic Times, 17 April 1994 .

  91. Letter from Sukh Ram dated April 20 1994, found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  92. Sinha, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer: My Years as Finance Minister, 161.

  93. Data sourced from ‘Highlights of Telecom Subscription Data as on 31st March, 2015’, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, available at http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/PR-34-TSD-Mar-12052015.pdf.

  94. Rohit Saran, ‘1995: Cell phones arrives’, India Today, 26 December 2005, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bengal-cm-jyoti-basu-made-indias-first-cell-phone-call-to-telecom-minister-sukh-ram-in-1995/1/192421.html.

  95. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.

  96. Interview with Tarun Das in New Delhi, 2015.

  97. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.

  98. ‘Defend GATT Aggressively’, India Today, 15 May 1994, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/defend-gatt-aggressively/1/295403.html.

  99. Resolution of 2 April 1994, found amongst Rao’s private papers in 2015.

  100. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1993–1994, 234.

  101. John F. Burns, ‘Unlikely Reformer Coaxes India Towards a Market Economy’, the New York Times, 8 May 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/08/business/unlikely-reformer-coaxes-india-toward-a-market-economy.html?pagewanted=all.

  102. Sunil Jain, ‘Slow Pace, Long Road’, India Today, 15 October 1994, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/slow-pace-long-road/1/294199.html.

  103. Daksesh Parekh, ‘Basically Different’, India Today, 30 September 1994, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/two-and-a-half-years-of-sulking-sensex-hits-new-high-with-cheery-nonchalance/1/294111.html.

  104. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1994–1995, 22.

  105. Rachel Dwyer, ‘“Indian values” and the diaspora: Yash Chopra’s films of the 1990s’, West Coast Line, 32–34 (2, Autumn 2000), 6–27.