Opinion Reassessing Rao

Rao was not to be disappointed. Indian entrepreneurs rose to the challenge and we had a tremendous growth in productive activity driven largely not by the “MRTP Business Houses” that dominated the first four decades of free India,but by a completely different set of wealth-creators who perhaps had always been there,but not allowed to flourish.

It must not be forgotten that it was in the Rao period that the Khalistan movement that engulfed Punjab and threatened India finally petered out. It was as if Rao imposed his phlegmatic personality on the problem and approached it with an almost “benign indifference” at times. He was not a polarising figure that his opponents could hate. The extremists exhausted themselves after a last round of bloodletting and the problem passed into history.

On the foreign policy front,Rao brought a breath of fresh air in his greater willingness to engage with West Asian and Southeast Asian countries. He built on Rajiv’s achievements as he reached out to the Chinese and set our relations on a realistic basis. When Pakistan tried to put us on the mat for human rights abuses in Kashmir,Rao reached out to political adversaries like A.B. Vajpayee and Farooq Abdullah to present our case to the world. It is interesting to note that Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew issued a statement after Rao’s electoral defeat saying that history would be kinder to Rao than the Indian electorate had been.

Many commentators,including some within his own party,have criticised Rao for the Babri Masjid demolition which certainly happened on his watch. It appears that most of them have not read Rao’s cogent book on this subject. He was faced with an awkward situation where virtually nothing he could do would have been right. Here was a duly elected state government giving a solemn affidavit under pain of perjury before the Supreme Court saying that they would protect the building. This government had a valid majority and could not be dismissed. In fact,if Rao had dismissed the state government prior to the demolition,he would have been censured by the SC for having violated the precepts of the Bommai judgment.

There was a risk of resistance which could have turned violent. The critics who come at him today,would have then argued that by dismissing an elected government,Rao made martyrs of the Hindutva forces and gave them undeserved popularity and legitimacy. Rao did whatever he could within the constitutional limits imposed on him. He sent Central forces and repeatedly requested the state government to make use of them — a request that the state government ignored and even sabotaged. Rao’s so-called failure on this score is in spite of his best efforts,not on account of them. We have had Hindu-Muslim riots for decades if not centuries. But over time,memories fade and some sort of healing seems to take place. The Babri destruction was not about killing but about attacking a symbol. This is a cross we have to bear and despite his well-argued defence,Rao’s reputation will be subject to a “Babri caveat”.

The one person who probably misses Rao the most is our current prime minister. Rao provided Manmohan Singh with the cover he needed to go ahead with bold economic and financial reform. Singh did not have to worry about the messy politics that Rao insulated him from. While the technical skills of Manmohan Singh will receive well-deserved adulation,the political achievement of Indian economic liberalisation will almost certainly be ascribed to Narasimha Rao by the historian writing in 2030 AD. For an introverted scholarly type of person with modest political beginnings and a modest career till fate suddenly thrust greatness upon him,this will be no mean achievement! Another way of paraphrasing it is to say that what Gladstone achieved for British society,Narasimha Rao achieved for the Indian economy. It is tough to think of a higher accolade.

jerry.rao@expressindia.com