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Unsung INDIA'S TIPPING POINT continued to be prac-
ticed by his daughter and
economy S. Narendra four-times prime minister
Indira Gandhi, her son
gamechanger Bloomsbury India Rajiv and is now being
Rs.699
212 pp preached by her grand-
son Rahul. Consequently,
URING THE past the Indian economy was
76 years since India stuck in the 3.5 percent
Dwrested freedom annual GDP growth rate
from almost 200 years of enterprise and perpetu- In this biography, for over 40 years, even as
British rule, P.V. Nara- ated poverty and illiteracy the author details our neighbour South-east
simha Rao (PVNR, 1921- in post-independence how prime minister Asian economies grew by
2004) was undoubtedly India, has been ignored Narasimha Rao 6-7 percent, and China
the greatest of India’s 14 by the media and media unshackled the Indian by 10 percent year-on-
prime ministers. Although pundits. The plain truth is economy by stealth year after Deng Xioping
he served only one term that India’s 400-million- liberalised the Chinese
in office (1991-96), during strong middle class with economy in 1978 and fa-
those momentous years deep connections — uncle, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassina- mously declared “to be rich
he substantially won the brother, nephew — pros- tion in 1991, Rao had been is glorious”.
country’s economic free- pering within the brother- appointed PM with the Although obliged to
dom by pulling it out of the hood, isn’t dissatisfied with tacit sanction of his widow maintain a low profile as
mire of neta-babu social- licence raj. It provides hid- Sonia Gandhi, whose minister in Mrs. Gan-
ism which had sentenced den subsidies — inflation- expectation was that as a dhi’s and Rajiv’s cabinet,
it to a rock-bottom 3.5 proof salaries, subsidised former minister in Rajiv’s there’s no doubt that Rao
percent GDP growth per electricity, water, higher cabinet he would be a — an arts/law graduate
year for four decades after education, pensions — and pliable caretaker PM and of Osmania and Bombay
independence, and wiped keeps private businessmen toe the socialist line. But universities — was erudite.
out the modest material (baniyas) in check. this calculation went awry He had learnt 17 languages
aspirations of an entire Highly risk-averse, because unlike all previous and was well aware of the
generation of free India’s under the influence of Ne- prime ministers, Rao was amazing progress of the
children. hruvian socialism nothing genuinely educated. Tiger economies of Asia
This informative biogra- gets the middle class goat Jawaharlal, the only and China in particular, as
phy written by S. Naren- more than businessmen Nehru to earn a university also of new media in India
dra, who as a senior aide of prospering and flaunting degree, scraped through which routinely trashed
PVNR and principal infor- their money. Which is why with a third class de- licence raj and proclaimed
mation officer and adviser even three decades after gree in natural sciences success stories of private
to the Union government liberalisation, Congress at Cambridge and was enterprises (Business In-
(1992-98), had a ringside leader Rahul Gandhi of the totally economics illiterate. dia, BusinessWorld).
view of those tumultuous Nehru dynasty continues However that didn’t stop Therefore, one of his
years during which the to excoriate India’s most him from upturning the first initiatives after he
choke-hold of the neta-ba- successful entrepreneurs Indian economy which had became prime minister
bu brotherhood on India’s — Ambani-Adani — who a thousand year tradition of politically free, but
economy was substantially have risen from rags to of free enterprise, and con- economically enslaved
broken, was overdue. It’s riches for ‘corruption’, i.e, verting it into a “socialist India, was to abolish the
a measure of the extent transgression of absurd pattern of society”. Central Industries (Development
to which the establish- economic laws enacted planning meant strangling & Regulation) Act, 1951
ment is committed to the by negligent Parliaments private enterprise and which required Central
status quo ante, that this down the ages. establishing vast public government licences to
revealing biography which The author details sector enterprises (PSEs) start industrial enterprises
details the step-by-step how PVNR steered and managed by business-illit- and bureaucrats in Delhi
dismantling of the licence- unshackled the Indian erate, risk-averse bureau- and/or the state capitals
permit-quota regime, economy by stealth for crats who quickly ran them controlled their expansion,
which had smothered the fear of the academy/es- into the ground. prices and governance.
native spirit of private tablishment. Following This arid socialism In retrospect, the

62 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2023