Narasimha Rao's final humiliation
December 27, 2004
Appropriately for the capital of a country that has witnessed the death of hope so often, Delhi is a city of tombs. To the many built to encase the remains of numerous emperors of the Mughal era and their successors has been added those from post-1947: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.
Neither Mohandas Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi was ever the holder of any public office, although some may claim that the contribution to Indian history of the second son of Indira Priyadarshini may not entirely be on the same scale as that of the Mahatma. However, Sanjay too was granted the same privilege of a samadhi in New Delhi.
Both Rajiv Gandhi and Charan Singh died while they were out of office, while Jagjivan Ram -- who never made it to the prime ministership -- was cremated outside of New Delhi, but had his ashes brought back and re-interred in New Delhi
Four of the eight post-1947 tombs have been created to honour members of the Nehru family, whose names are etched on airports, ports, roads, townships, public conveniences and much else in a country that is presumably grateful that such a brood chose to be born in their midst.
As some are aware, Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao was not a member of the Nehru family. He was, however, the first prime minister from south of the Vindhyas, lasted a full term in office, and began the transformation of India through the economic reforms initiated by him.
Most would say that Rao's remains had at least the same right to a slice of prime New Delhi land as did Charan Singh's or Sanjay Gandhi's. The newspapers, who are extremely deferential to the actual powers-that-be, have been told and have reported that Rao was cremated in Hyderabad 'as per the wishes of his family members.'
This statement contains the same measure of truth as the comment that the former prime minister was 'regularly consulted on all important matters' by the current Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.
In fact, despite being a former AICC president and a prime minister, Narasimha Rao was not just excluded from the Congress Working Commitee since the current heir to the Nehru dynasty took charge of the party in 1998, he was not even allowed to become one of the numerous 'special invitees', most of whom get selected for their cheerleader skills rather than any other contribution.
Given that former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and the non-prime minister Sanjay Gandhi were given state funerals and a final resting place in what may be termed the National Capital's 'Zone of the Dead,' the reasons why such a privilege was denied to Narasimha Rao are obscure.
They, however, are depressingly in line with a pattern that dogged Rao since 1992, when he refused to accept that he was not a public servant, but a Nehru Family retainer. In what follows, an account is given of the circumstances behind the final humiliation of Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao.
A short while before he got hospitalised, Narasimha Rao -- whose antennae were always active in picking up signals, especially from the many former and current officials who were admirers of his policies -- was informed of a plan by senior politicians in his own party to implicate him and another former prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, in the assasination of Rajiv Gandhi.
For eight years, Rao had been the only former prime minister to have endured the torture of a series of cases filed against him. These had been masterminded -- and the legwork for them funded -- by the very same individuals who, he was now credibly told, were plotting to implicate him in one of the most heinous crimes of the century. The motive presented for Chandra Shekhar would be revenge -- Rajiv made his life a misery and finally made it impossible for him to remain dependent on Congress support with dignity. That for Narasimha Rao would be the job that he stepped into after the 1991 Lok Sabha election.
To those scripting such Stalin-style show trials, it did not matter that Narasimha Rao had himself asked Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 for permission to retire, and was looking forward during and after the election that year only to writing and to music, and to the company of friends. Or that Rao was the sort of individual who was incapable of violence or vengeance, even against those who were his enemies, which was why -- for example -- the CBI permitted Ottavio Quatrocchi to leave the country.
In Narasimha Rao, forbearance grew to the level of a vice. It was as absurd to imagine him plotting to see Rajiv Gandhi dead as it was to believe that Rajinder Kumar Dhawan planned the demise of the only person he worshipped, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.
However, to the Stalinist scriptwriters within the Congress party who hated Rao for his perceived lese majeste, truth and logic were never allowed to remain in the way of a slur.
Shortly before he fell so ill that he had to be taken to hospital for the first time before the final crisis, Narasimha Rao told the writer that it had been a very ugly past few years, thanks to the constant threat of imprisonment hanging over his head. He saw these legal entanglements as a way of paralysing him, removing his capacity to emerge as a player once again, and said that because of their fear of what he could do -- whether justified or not -- they would keep immobilising him through more such stratagems.
PV was calm, he was cynical in his humorous way, but far from resigned. The old fox, whom his father had hoped would become the patwari of his village, felt he had another innings left at the crease, one in which he would once again score a double century. Indeed, he had begun the process of re-entry into active politics by giving me a lengthy interview during the 2004 Lok Sabha election on just why it was wrong to place the destruction of the Babri Masjid at his door, that was carried across a page by The Asian Age.
This was to be followed up by another interview, in which he would explain the conditions in which he and an individual he loved and respected, Manmohan Singh, rescued the Indian economy from collapse, in the process setting it almost free. I would remind him off and on about this second interview, till almost the final days.
Was it the knowledge that yet another conspiracy against him was on the way towards execution that pushed his body beyond the borderline of viable capability? For years, Narasimha Rao had been tended by Sreenath Reddy, one of the finest heart specialists in the world, the son of a close friend -- Raghunatha Reddy -- who was himself as idealistic as his boy. Ever watchful, this surrogate son had monitored PV's health and made sure that the body worked well enough to keep that superb mind working at Concorde speed.
What goes on in the human mind, what short-circuit in the synapses causes a sudden collapse, is impossible to tell. Perhaps it was not this terrible information that pushed him across the red line. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was nothing except perhaps a sudden onset of the common cold.
Even in hospital, even in his final days, PV exuded confidence. The doctors -- and they included many who had grown to love PV the man, if not P V Narasimha Rao the prime minister -- were grim-faced, as were the others clustered outside his room in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Not so PV.
Strangely, his physical collapse had led to a toughening of his will. The voice was low, one did not have the will to respond and thus force him to expend energy by replying to the reply, but PV was determined to keep on talking about what would be.
This time, he would not make the mistake of not reacting to the torment, he would resist his inbuilt aversion towards his friends fighting back on his behalf and allow them to. There had been something aloof and patrician about the man from Vangara village, that made any effort at self-defense seem a contemptible display of weakness. But he was aloof no more. The eyes were tired but fierce, the voice was often unable to reach the level of becoming audible, but there was a hardening in the timbre that had not always been present during the years in office.
But this fresh dawn never took place. Sometime after noon on December 23, 13 days after he had been brought to the hospital early in the morning following a cardiac incident, PV decided to call it quits. It was more than an hour before the doctors finally did.
Strangely -- or perhaps entirely expectedly -- despite a special Union Cabinet meeting at 3 pm on the subject of his funeral, at his 9 Motilal Nehru Marg home there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it on a platform, nor flowers, nor any laying out of carpets by the administration for the mourning crowds to sit down on, nor even a shamiana on the lawns.
Finally, Kishore, a friend of PV's, made arrangements for both. The shamiana could get erected only by 8.15 pm. Carpets and flowers too were provided by family and friends and not by what seemed to be a totally bankrupt Government of India. As if to atone for his visible helplessness, the prime minister, Sardar Manmohan Singh, looked visibly moved as he quietly remained by the side of the body, which had been brought in from the hospital a little before 5 pm. As a gesture of supreme graciousness, Sonia Gandhi turned up and even stayed for a few minutes.
While some of those present then may be made to deny this later, the fact is that the family members -- as well as the crowd of mourners -- would have been happy to see the father of economic reform and the first prime minister from the south in the history of Free India be given the same honours as Sanjay Gandhi and Charan Singh, a State funeral in New Delhi and an appropriate memorial. Home Minister Shivraj Patil was clearly the emissary of some Unseen Power, for he came several times to the Rao home from some other place where he had apparently gone for consultations, to insist in his own courteous way on a funeral in Hyderabad.
It was clear to observers that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not being consulted on this matter, there was not even a pretence of that on the part of the emissaries of the Unseen Power. A few such as Ahmed Patel could be observed giving regular updates via cellphone to Somebody about the situation in 9 Motilal Nehru Marg. A very useful man, Ahmed Patel.
It was decided Somewhere that PV's body would be sent back to his home state. Ironically, PV had spent the previous 30 years in New Delhi, as a Cabinet minister, as an AICC general secretary and as prime minister. Even when he had been the prime minister, no member of his family lived with him, they would come on (infrequent) visits.
In his last years to, he lived alone. Thus the attempt to justify a shift to Hyderabad on the grounds that "he was not a Delhi resident" was somewhat of a stretch. Another argument used to justify the move to Hyderabad for the final obsequies was that the Vajpayee Cabinet had passed a resolution against any more samadhis. Again, for a regime that has been talking of 'detoxifying' the country from the misdeeds of the Vajpayee Parivar era, this was somewhat ingenious.
The family behaved with quiet dignity throughout. They said that as their father had been a Congressman, a freedom fighter, a prime minister, they would leave it to the Congress party and the government as to what was to be done.
The only moment of friction came when a high official suggested that if the sentiment was so overwhelming within the circle of those who loved PV that the cremation take place in the national capital, then very well, it would take place, but in the Delhi cantonment, as though PV were some bacillus that the refined gentry living in the Lutyens Zone did not want to see contaminate their environment.
The response to this suggestion on the part of those close to PV was that they would then cremate him at the Nigambodh Ghat, along with the other common men, which after all was all that he seemed to be to the powers-that-be.
It was at this stage that a Heavy Hitter arrived, in the person of Y S Rajshekhar Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, who 'cajoled' those close to PV into 'agreeing' that it would be best to cremate him in Hyderabad. Around this time, those who looked like Intelligence Bureau sleuths began nosing around the rooms. It had been known that PV had kept voluminous records, including the draft of a book on the Emergency. It is unlikely that any of this will ever emerge into the daylight, except in a very sanitised way.
The next day, December 24, the body of the former Congress prime minister was brought to the gates of the AICC office at 24, Akbar Road and kept there for 20 minutes, 'to pay homage.' Apparently, the body was so heavy that it would not have been possible to lift what was left of PV from the gun carriage into the Congress headquarters, which would have been the civilised thing to do.
After this final humiliation, P V Narasimha Rao left New Delhi for Hyderabad, this time for good.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/28monu.htm
How Sonia Led Congress Tried to Destroy PV Narasimha Rao’s Legacy
Posted By:
HinduPost Staff June 28, 2016
Today is the 95th birth anniversary of Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao (PVNR), arguably the best Prime Minister that Bharat has had till date. PVNR served as the 9th Prime Minister of Bharat from 1991-96 at an extraordinarily difficult time when the country was on the verge of bankruptcy and economic collapse. He is considered the architect of economic reforms & liberalization that ushered in an era of growth and rescued us from the crisis created by decades of the statist economic model (license-permit raj) enforced by Nehru and Indira.
Born in 1921 in Hyderabad State, PVNR was a freedom fighter (he
fought against the Nizam of Hyderabad’s Razakar Army) who joined the Congress party after Bharat won independence in 1947. A loyal Congressman his entire life, PVNR held important cabinet portfolios like Home, Defence, Foreign Affairs in the Governments of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. After the assassination of Congress President Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, PVNR rose to head the minority Congress Government as Bharat’s first Prime Minister from South Bharat, and was the first person outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as PM for five continuous years.
Nation above party interests
PV Narasimha Rao was a path-breaking leader in more ways than one. A scholar par excellence (he was fluent in 17 languages), he openly opposed the dynasty sycophants who have dominated the Congress since Independence. After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, when durbaris like Arjun Singh & Vincent George proposed that Rajiv’s wife
Sonia be made the Congress chief, the meritocratic PVNR shot back
saying “
Why should the Congress party be hitched to the Nehru-Gandhi family like train compartments to the engine?“ PVNR went on to become PM after Congress MPs
voted for him in an internal party election.
Even though he was leading a minority Government, PVNR appointed deserving people to key positions, even crossing party-lines when required. His first choice for Finance Minister was ex-RBI Governor I.G. Patel, but when Patel
declined, PVNR chose a non-political economist & bureaucrat Manmohan Singh for the job. He also appointed Subramanian Swamy, an Opposition party member as the Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade and sent another Opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to represent Bharat in a UN meeting at Geneva.
PVNR’s Historic Legacy Whitewashed by Vindictive Sonia
After Congress lost the 1996 elections under PVNR’s leadership, the Congress swiftly reverted to type with the next in line of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Sonia Gandhi, regaining control of the party through faithful family loyalists like Arjun Singh, MS Aiyar etc. This 2004
rediff piece by MD Nalapat informs us, “Despite being a former AICC (All India Congress Committee) president and a prime minister, PVNR was not just excluded from the Congress Working Commitee since Sonia Gandhi took charge of the party in 1998, he was not even allowed to become one of the numerous ‘special invitees’, most of whom get selected for their cheerleader skills rather than any other contribution.”
When PVNR died in 2004 in Delhi after suffering a heart attack, his body was not allowed inside the AICC (All India Congress Committee) building. He was denied a state funeral in New Delhi which an outstanding ex-PM like him deserved – he was finally cremated in Hyderabad. Under Sonia, Congress has consistently refused to recognize PVNR’s role in steering the country in difficult times, and he has been removed from history books while even absolute non-achievers like Rahul Gandhi get a mention!
In a speech to mark the 125th anniversary of the Congress, the party president
Sonia Gandhi made it a point to ignore PVNR, while crediting her husband Rajiv Gandhi for scripting the economic policies that were implemented by the PVNR Government.
Even today, dynasty loyalists like the controversial Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, spout nothing but venom for a man who dragged Bharat out of an economic mire and put it on the path to become the fastest growing economy today.
When the present day Congress led by Sonia Gandhi cannot even honor one of its own, what hope can we have that this party will show a bipartisan approach in passing important economic legislation like GST. Sonia and her corrupt coterie would do well to borrow a leaf from the PM’s book who paid tributes to PVNR on his 95th birth anniversary.
PVNR deserves the Bharat Ratna (our highest civilian honor) for his outstanding service to the nation. While members of the Nehru Gandhi dynasty like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi were quick to award
themselves with the honor, Sonia Gandhi ensured that PVNR was denied this recognition during the UPA 1 & 2 terms. It is time that the current NDA Government corrects this anomaly and recognizes the scholarly ex-PM from Hyderabad who was consigned to the sidelines of history by the very political party he served with such distinction.
https://www.hindupost.in/history/how-sonia-led-congress-tried-to-destroy-pv-narasimha-raos-legacy/
Congress honours Rao amid fears BJP may commandeer former PM's legacy
By
Amit Agnihotri
Published: 16:35 EST, 28 June 2015 | Updated: 18:19 EST, 28 June 2015
Concerned that the BJP may hijack the legacy of yet another party leader as it did with those of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress on Sunday remembered former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao on his 94th birth anniversary.
Rao, who headed a Congress government between 1991 and 1996, and passed away in 2004, was disowned by the Grand Old Party during the 10-year-rule of the previous UPA government.
Sources said Rao never had an easy relationship with the Gandhi family, and hence could never find favour with the grand old party.
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Congress leader Digvijaya Singh pays tributes to late prime minister PV Narasimha Rao on his birth anniversary in Hyderabad
Since the NDA government came to power last year, Congress managers have been concerned over its attempts to hijack the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi through the Clean India campaign, that of Sardar Patel through the National Unity Day celebrations, and that of Rao by planning a memorial in his honour in the national Capital.
“Our humble tribute to Former Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao on his birth anniversary today,” the Congress tweeted.
The Grand Old Party’s remembrance of Rao was also driven by the fact that the Congress failed to capture the public imagination even after the previous UPA created Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh in its last leg.
PV Narasimha Rao headed a Congress government between 1991 and 1996 and passed away in 2004
As a result, the Congress lost badly in both the general and Assembly elections last year in both Telangana, where the local player TRS took the cake, and in Andhra Pradesh, where the TDP came to power.
The TDP government had moved a resolution last October urging the Centre to build a memorial for Rao, who hailed from Telangana.
In May 2013, the UPA government blocked demands for separate memorials, with the Cabinet deciding to set up a common memorial ground — Rashtriya Smriti — in view of paucity of space in the national Capital.
The Centre too remembered Rao, especially for ushering in economic reforms in the country in 1991.
“At last, could erect a memorial, 'Rastriya Smriti' at Delhi for Sri PV Narasimha Rao, who ushered in economic reforms in India. I pay tributes on his 94th Jayanti,” Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who belongs to Andhra Pradesh, tweeted.
Interestingly, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who headed the UPA government from 2004 to 2014, was Rao’s finance minister and pushed the economic reforms.
However, there was little mention of Rao during the UPA decade.
The TRS government had also made arrangements to claim the legacy of Rao. In an attempt to regain lost ground, the Congress organised an event at Hyderabad to pay tributes to the former prime minister.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahom...-fears-BJP-commandeer-former-PM-s-legacy.html
‘Sonia no Indira, Nehru legacy has reached a dead end’
By PANKAJ VOHRA | | 25 October, 2015
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi’s political advisor Makhan Lal Fotedar sees a very bleak future for the Congress as “it has no one to provide direction”. The party refuses to learn and “there is nothing right which the party has done or is doing. It saddens me that the Nehru-Gandhi legacy has reached a cul-de-sac”.
In the concluding pages of his book,
The Chinar Leaves, (published by Harper Collins) he has observed that “Sonia Gandhi will go down in history as the longest serving Congress president even if not the most distinguished. When she took over as the chief in 1998, the party was on the verge of disintegration. In fact she helped to rebuild it from a position where its seats had come down to about 116. The supreme irony is that 17 and half years later, the party is again on the verge of a collapse. However, this time there is no saviour. Rahul Gandhi’s leadership is unacceptable to the people of this country and Sonia Gandhi has her best years behind her.”
While acknowledging that Sonia Gandhi was still the unchallenged leader of the party, he has noted that it is, therefore, her responsibility to reinvent the Congress. Blaming Rahul is in a way shifting the blame from the Congress president to someone who has yet to display his leadership skills. “History is threatening to repeat itself. It is a matter of time before Sonia and Rahul’s leadership is challenged from within the party. I will be observing closely how they stand up to this looming challenge, because Sonia is not Indira and Rahul is not Sanjay.”
The astute politician has held sycophants responsible for the party’s current state. He has recalled that during the 2009 general elections, Sonia Gandhi was of the opinion that the Congress would get between 145 and 155 seats but he had categorically told her that the number would be between190 to 210. The party got 206 seats. The reason for the 60 extra seats was that Dr Manmohan Singh enjoyed a very clean image and his persona as a middle class icon led the UPA to victory. However, the sycophants around the Congress president tried to create a perception that the increase in the seats was on account of the active participation of Rahul Gandhi in campaigning and his appeal as a youth icon. Sonia allowed this perception to gain ground, thereby denying the credit to Dr Singh. “It was abundantly clear that Sonia had made up her mind to foist Rahul Gandhi on the party and the country was waiting for the right time.”
Fotedar further notes that Rahul had not been groomed for the job properly and was therefore reluctant to take over the responsibility. The situation was different when Rajiv Gandhi, who too was at one time reluctant, was initiated into politics. Rajiv had the benefit of learning some fundamental things from his mother who understood the intricacies and nuances of Indian politics. Indira was also a great teacher and made Rajiv understand the issues step by step with the assistance of her aides, who were all too willing to help him out. It is another thing that Rajiv too did not follow many of Indira’s suggestions and consequently suffered.
He has written, “in the case of Rahul there was nobody to tutor or mentor him. Sonia Gandhi is not Indira Gandhi and was herself dependent on so many people on what she should do. And many of those who advised her were as ignorant as her on many issues on which they were asked to give advice. Rahul had a certain stubbornness and his motivation to become a leader was not very strong. People around Sonia secretly did not wish him to succeed because they realised that if Rahul grew as a leader they would themselves become irrelevant. The dilemma before Sonia was that on one hand she could not do without her coterie while on the other hand she had an overriding desire to see her son succeed in politics. There were too many vested interests around and Sonia was reluctant to accept her responsibility for the decline of the Congress in the war of perceptions.”
Fotedar admits that the Congress and the UPA government were being seen to be both corrupt and inefficient. There was a growing feeling that the Congress was drifting from its secular ideology towards minorityism. “There were occasions when the party while finalising seats for legislatures or Parliament would nominate either a Muslim or a Christian even if there were better qualified candidates available. The party from 2004 was moving into the hands of those who had come from other parties, since Sonia’s coterie found it convenient to deal with outsiders rather than insiders, who were aware of their capacity as well as devious ways. This had led to a huge disconnect as the cadres were greatly disillusioned with the leadership. Leaders and general secretaries who had nothing to do with grassroots politics were foisted from above. A case in point was that of Maharashtra where Prithviraj Chavan was sent as the Chief Minister and Mohan Prakash as the general secretary in charge. Both were ignorant of state politics and many MLAs complained that these two gentlemen did not know them nor did they know these two leaders. Those who represented the party in TV discussions too were people who had come from other parties like Rashid Alvi, Renuka Chowdhury, Sanjay Nirupam and Rajiv Shukla.”
Fotedar has also attached as an annexure a letter written by him to Sonia Gandhi in June 2006, wherein he cautioned her against trivialising the office of the Prime Minister. He expressed his concern over several challenges being faced by the UPA government, which included demands being made by Left parties, controversy over the Office of Profit Bill and the overbearing role of the National Advisory Council (NAC). His letter also mentioned reports pouring in about how various ministries and state governments of the Congress were being run and the manner in which Cabinet ministers were repeatedly challenging the authority of the Prime Minister. “I suggested to her either to take over as the Prime Minister of the country or allow the office of the Prime Minister to function with full authority and dignity. No government where the position of the Prime Minister stood compromised could acquit itself creditably. However, the muted response from the Congress president indicated that my sincere advice and valuable suggestions had fallen on deaf ears and the drift thus continued.”
He has also made mention to the fact that distancing had taken place between him and the Congress president and therefore their interaction had become increasingly infrequent. However, whenever they did meet, he could not refrain from presenting the true picture to her. “I was pained to watch the Congress being taken over by people who had nothing to do with the party’s ideology and traditions. Middlemen, power brokers against whom even Rajiv had spoken during his tenure as the Prime Minister were calling the shots and the grassroots workers and elected representatives were being slowly marginalised. The party leadership had no time for organisational matters and an extra constitutional authority had been created to navigate the task of governance.”
http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/1674-sonia-no-indira-nehru-legacy-has-reached-dead-end
i.e are you a hardcore family loyalist to the end, or someone that is finally capable of seeing the situation for what it is.
