Half - Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India
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83. Email interview with C. Raja Mohan, 2016.
84. P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 318.
85. Interview with C. Raja Mohan in New Delhi, 2015.
86. Interview with Salman Haidar in New Delhi, 2015.
87. Interview with C. Raja Mohan in New Delhi, 2015.
88. Letter found among Narasimha Rao’s private papers in 2015.
89. Interview with Krishnan Srinivasan (on phone) in Kolkata, 2015.
14. GOING NUCLEAR
1. ‘Rao was “true father” of Indian bomb, says Vajpayee’, Daily Times, http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/national/28-Dec-2004/rao-was-true-father-of-indian-bomb-says-vajpayee.
2. Interview with Shekhar Gupta in New Delhi, 2015.
3. M.V. Ramana, The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (New Delhi: Viking, 2013).
4. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation, 331.
5. Interview with Dr V.S. Arunachalam in Bangalore, 2015.
6. K. Subrahmanyam, ‘Narasimha Rao and the Bomb’, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, October 2004, http://www.idsa.in/strategicanalysis/NarasimhaRaoandtheBomb_ksubramanyam_1004.
7. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation, 324.
8. Ibid., 326.
9. Available at http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/89-92/Chapter%208/GENERAL%20ISSUES/Item%2028_SC%20respons%20in%20maint%20IPS.pdf.
10. Entries in Appointment Diary 1991, written by Rao’s secretary, Khandekar; found amidst his private papers in 2015.
11. Interview with Dr V.S. Arunachalam in Bangalore, 2015.
12. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000), 370.
13. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation, 322.
14. Ibid.
15. Interview with Dr V.S. Arunachalam in Bangalore, 2015.
16. Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power, 381.
17. Data available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/india/prithvi.htm.
18. Interview with Ronen Sen in New Delhi, 2015.
19. Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power, 384.
20. Ibid, 382–84.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 371.
23. Menon, ‘The Quiet Innovator: Foreign Policy under P.V. Narasimha Rao’, 303.
24. Menon, Reminiscences of a ‘Fly on the Wall’: Oral History’, 334–35.
25. Interview with Prabhakar Menon in Delhi, 2015.
26. Interview with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in Delhi, 2015.
27. Tim Weiner, ‘U.S. Suspects India Prepares To Conduct Nuclear Test’, the New York Times, 15 December 1995, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/15/world/us-suspects-india-prepares-to-conduct-nuclear-test.html.
28. Information corroborated from declassified US State Department documents. See http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb412/docs/doc%201.pdf.
29. Interview with Shekhar Gupta in New Delhi, 2015.
30. Entries in Appointment Diary 1996, written by Rao’s secretary, Khandekar, found amidst his private papers in 2015.
31. Bharti Jain, ‘Narasimha Rao had asked Kalam to be ready for nuclear test’, the Times of India, 25 January2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narasimha-Rao-had-asked-Kalam-to-be-ready-for-nuclear-test/articleshow/18173888.cms.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation, 353–77.
35. Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power, 395.
36. Interview with Shekhar Gupta in New Delhi, 2015.
37. Interview with Dr V.S. Arunachalam in Bangalore, 2015.
38. Jain, ‘Narasimha Rao had asked Kalam to be ready for nuclear test’.
39. See, for example, Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).
40. See generally C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
41. See, for example, Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament.
15. LION, FOX, MOUSE
1. ‘Chronology of Lakhubhai Pathak case’, Rediff, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/22rao2.htm.
2. Rakesh Bhatnagar, ‘The beginning of the end for Rao’, the Times of India, 22 September 1996, 1.
3. Interview with N.K. Sharma in New Delhi, 2015.
4. Janak Singh, ‘Rao isn’t their cup of tea anymore’, the Times of India, 25 September 1996, 1.
5. Interview with Salman Khurshid in New Delhi, 2015.
6. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 205.
7. Man Mohan, ‘Honourable acquittals satisfied Rao’, the Times of India, 25 December 2004, 7.
8. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
9. Interview with Satchidananda Swamy in Bengaluru, 2015.
10. Ibid.
11. Interview with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
12. Letter found amidst Rao’s private papers in 2016.
13. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.
14. Interview with Shubhranshu Singh in Mumbai, 2014.
15. Email conversation with Pramath Raj Sinha, son-in-law of A.N. Varma, 2016.
16. Parkash Satti, Futuristic Version of Geeta: The Ultimate Theory of Fate (New Delhi: Partridge India, 2015).
17. Interviews with P.V. Prabhakara Rao and Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
18. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
19. Ibid.
20. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
21. Arjun (with Chopra), A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time: An Autobiography, 351–52.
22. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
23. Nigel Hamilton, ‘On biography’, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-hamilton/on-biography_b_780976.html.
24. Interview with Ronen Sen in New Delhi, 2015.
25. See Raghavan, ‘At the Cusp of Transformation: The Rajiv Gandhi Years, 1984–89’.
26. Brian Bulduc, ‘Robert Caro: Political Power—How to Get It and Use It’, Wall Street Journal, 4 May 2012, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304743704577382450285971364.
27. Interview with Ramu Damodaran in New York, 2015.
28. Ivan Turgenev and Moshe Spiegel, ‘Hamlet and Don Quixote’, Chicago Review 17, no. 4 (1965): 92–109.
29. Gay Saul Morson, ‘The intolerable dream’, New Criterion, November 2015.
30. Ibid.
31. Devesh Kapur, ‘Exit’, Seminar, http://www.india-seminar.com/2016/677/677_devesh_kapur.htm.
32. Note found among Narasimha Rao’s private papers in 2015.
33. Interview with Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015; also, interview with another bureaucrat in the PMO who wanted to remain anonymous.
34. Notes found among Narasimha Rao’s private papers in 2015.
35. The amount was Rs 950 crore. Interview with K.R. Venugopal in Hyderabad, 2015.
36. Interview with A.S. Dulat in Delhi, 2015.
37. V. Balachandran, ‘The Rao breakthrough’, the Indian Express, 20 August 2015, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-rao-breakthrough/.
38. Interview with Shekhar Gupta in New Delhi, 2015.
39. Interview with Kalyani Shankar in New Delhi, 2015.
40. Card given to the author by Ramu Damodaran in New York, 2016.
41. Walk the Talk, NDTV, http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/walk-the-talk/walk-the-talk-p-v-narasimha-rao/296375.
42. Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India, 176.
43. P.V. Narasimha Ra
o Selected Speeches 1991–1992, 197.
44. Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (New York: Basic Books, 2013).
45. See Vinay Sitapati, ‘What Anna Hazare and the Indian Middle-Classes Say About Each Other’, Economic&Political Weekly 46, no. 30 (2011).
Acknowledgements
If there is a central theme that runs through Narasimha Rao’s life, it is fortuna. So it is with this book. I was fortunate that my subject kept daily diaries, notes and letters. Few Indian leaders, if any, have left behind such a paper trail. When I began writing on Rao in early 2015, I had no idea that cartons of his papers even existed. I was also lucky that those who knew him—admirers as well as detractors—were alive (if barely) and willing to speak. Fortune smiled on me.
Luck alone, however, is insufficient to succeed. As Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, one needed virtu to make use of luck. Rao had his virtues. Mine were an eclectic team of mentors, colleagues and friends who converted my good fortune into the book you have just read.
Aditi Sriram read every chapter before I had the courage to show it to anyone else. She put up with Narasimha Rao the entire year I wrote this book, always a source of encouragement. Her aesthetic and insights permeate these pages. My brother Sudhir Sitapati, marketing genius, refashioned every word. He knows to never let detail and description obscure the larger point. If this book is easy to read and shorn of academic gobbledygook, you have him to thank. Ramu Damodaran helped me think through every idea, indulging me even when he disagreed. His perceptions, and fingerprints, are on every page. Neel Maitra was present at the creation: when, on a New Jersey train in 2014, we both felt Rao deserved a book. He improved every idea with a scholarly mind, read every word with a lawyer’s eye. Maitra would often criticize a sentence with ‘The only thing worse is the sentence before.’
Srinath Raghavan read with a historian’s eye, providing detail and demanding more context. Srinath makes the mistake of presuming that others can be as meticulous as he is, work as hard as he does. Devesh Kapur, so nurturing of the young, has a love for cold facts I take seriously. His line-by-line remarks restructured this book. For anyone brave enough to write on India without pandering to university politics, Ramachandra Guha must be the inspiration. His comments have added reassurance as well as depth. Satyam Viswanathan, who dons the day garb of a market researcher with the nightdress of a deep thinker, provided this book’s ideal reader: interested in politics but uninterested in differences between a joint and additional secretary. Aditya Iyer has the quirks of a writer; he also has the talent. He ensured that each para ending was premonition of the next.
Prabhakara and Rajeshwara, Narasimha Rao’s sons, decided to trust me and reveal a treasure trove of private papers and archives. These have never been made public before. Prabhakara was also unstinting with rare photos. That they helped without expecting a hagiography would have made their father proud. Pramath Raj Sinha kindly made available Amar Nath Varma’s papers. I must also thank the many anonymous sources who risked their careers in opening up. Your names are safe with me.
Kaushik Vaidya, polymath, prodded words until they fit. Lawyer K. Vivek Reddy set aside many billable hours hoping a Telugu bidda would get his due. Priya Krishnan gave line-by-line edits—an explanation here, a comma there—that has made the book measurably tighter. Aman Ahluwalia uses the few words he deploys to devastating effect. When I mentioned that a godman close to Rao indulged in human sacrifice, Aman interjected in a low voice, ‘You mean murder. You mean murder.’
My understanding of politics has been shaped by a variety of people. Three stand out: Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Shekhar Gupta and Atul Kohli. The perfect mentor, Pratap helped think through this project from infancy to adulthood. He knows how to provoke without being provocative, critique without being critical. He is the primary influence on this book. Shekhar Gupta has an interviewer’s ear for the telling quote, a reporter’s eye for the revealing detail. He has taught me to respect the worm’s view of politics. Atul Kohli, fabled professor at Princeton, has a bird’s vision of the structures that produce and perpetuate power. His scholarship on the Indian political economy helped provide context to Rao’s actions. This book would not have happened but for his support.
The same is true of Kim Scheppele and Ezra Suleiman, my other advisors at Princeton. Kim’s dazzling range of disciplinary inquiry is an inspiration to those seeking to break out from departmental straightjackets. Ezra brings charm and cherishing to young researchers, a rarity in that most hierarchical of worlds. Jennifer Widner’s course on the politics of development helped me structure this book. Christophe Jaffrelot taught me to take empirical detail and context seriously. Mark R. Beissinger, avuncular as well as exacting, was generous with funding.
Geoffrey Sigalet, Canadian philosopher, exacted context that a non-Indianist could grasp. My conversations with him on Machiavelli, Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes have helped frame the theoretical arguments in this book. B. Chandrasen Rao, from that vanishing tribe of selfless political workers, extended his altruism to this book. He has a preternatural feel for the mendacity of everyday politics, without ever being infected by it. Vivek ‘Bongo’ Trilokinath combines the analytical skills of a fund manager with the creativity of an aesthete. Bhanu Joshi provided insights on infrastructure, Nalin Mehta on the television industry, K.N. Vaidyanathan on capital markets. An IIT grad as a research assistant is a luxury. Thank you, Vikram Srinivas.
Rao had his eyes and ears. Mine are Vishnu Shankar, Madhav Khosla and Bipin Aspatwar. Vishnu’s feel for foreign and nuclear policy speaks of a lost career; Madhav’s grasp of academic writing speaks of a promising one. Bipin, that lover of mystery novels, has an eye for a good story. For an entire year, they were assaulted by constant references to Rao. This is atonement.
P.V.R.K. Prasad gave me much valuable time and encouragement. Sanjaya Baru munificently handed over his contacts and stories. As did Jairam Ramesh, whose admiration for Rao translated into assistance for this book. Unlike most politicians, Jairam is non-hierarchical. His big-heartedness proves that in the Hobbesian jungle that is Lutyens Delhi, not everyone is nasty or brutish.
A distinguished team of economists helped me. Rohit Lamba made sure I paid attention to theory and concepts. The always rigorous Shoumitro Chatterjee never let me overstate my conclusions. Partha Mukhopadhyay, budget man extraordinaire, was gracious with his expertise. As was Arvind Subramanian, who has the ability to be both friendly as well as inspiring.
The other technical field I received expert help on was foreign policy. Prabhakar Menon has written two excellent essays on Rao’s international relations. I was led to Menon by another, Shiv Shankar Menon. K. Raja Mohan, doyen of strategic studies, helped structure the chapter. As did the only two living foreign secretaries of prime minister Rao, Salman Haidar and Krishnan Srinivasan.
Gautam and Gaurav Sabharwal helped with interviews, generously vouching for me to their vast network. ‘To really understand India,’ Gautam told me while pinching his wrist, ‘you need a DNA.’ Koppula Raju, from the Congress, kindly introduced me to Rao’s family. A host of others, from Nandan Nilekani and K. Natwar Singh to Montek Ahluwalia and Yamini Aiyar, provided me with contacts. Needless to say, it doesn’t implicate them in the opinions expressed in this book.
Throughout the 100-odd interviews I did, it was hard not be dazzled. Those interviewed had all been players in the 1990s. Twenty-five years later, facing death or dentures, they layered their reflections with hindsight. What emerged was wisdom.
My friends from the Left have blunted some of my sharper edges. Kanta Murali, as rigorous as I am prone to polemic, has reshaped my understanding of business-politics relations. Dinsha Mistree, as good-natured in the political as he is in the personal, is a fountain of joy. Sanjay Rupaleria, that careful scholar of contemporary India, is an ideal sparring partner. As are my two close Marxist friends, Sandipto Dasgupta and Arjun Sengupta. They are willing to argue, with voices r
aised even, without ever questioning the friendship that lies beneath.
I learnt writing from the works of George Orwell and V.S. Naipaul. Alia Allana, who writes some of the most moving sentences I know, mixes craft with general insanity (as, I predict, will Naira). Chinki Sinha’s love for the lede, that burdensome first sentence, accosted me at the start of each chapter. Ananya Vajpeyi and Basharat Peer helped the transition to intellectual Delhi. Patrick French, whose life of Naipaul is the best biography I have read, was generous with trade tips. As was Dinyar Patel, that patient chronicler of Dadabhai Naoroji.
The Indian Express has taught me everything I know about journalism. I have learnt about north Indian politics from Seema Chishti and Vandita Mishra. Vandita has also made me take reporting seriously. Unni Rajen Shanker teaches me to never get hassled or hyperbolic. Saubhik Chakrabarti critiqued my early forays into opinion writing, Mini Kapoor was an effective first boss. The endearing Neeraj Priyadarshi helped with photographs; the delightfully opinionated Parth Mehrotra is a model of integrity. The Express has taught me to be hard-hitting as well as restrained. The man who exemplifies this is Raj Kamal Jha, whose sure touch reshapes every Express story. He made me promise never to use ‘I’ in my stories. The absence of the first person in this book is entirely his doing.
Shishira Rudrappa and Esther were kind hosts in Bangalore. Delhi has become home thanks to the Khoslas (Harish, Rajiv, Amita) and Sunitha Rangaswami (the best cook I know). M.R. Madhavan, Shyam Balganesh, Rushabh Sanghavi, Abu Mathen George, Shadan Farasat, Darshana Narayanan, Ashutosh Salil, Kartick Maheshwari, Averi Banerjee, Raeesa Vakil, Mohit Abraham, Rachael Israel, Jayadev Calamur, all provided emotional shelter. In Hyderabad, K. Pavan Kumar was especially supportive, as was Vijay Kumar of EMESCO books. The staff at IIC, Delhi, particularly Saandiip Biiswaas, provided helpful assistance.
This book began as the child of Nandini Mehta and Chiki Sarkar, who provided early nutrition. It passed on to Meru Gokhale and her team at Penguin Random House, including the resourceful and receptive Tarini Uppal and the hawk-eyed V.C. Shanuj. Meru showered attention, reading the draft with care. She has improved the book’s flavour—from better-cooked side characters to more spice sprinkled over the early chapters.