I think Jairam being an insider, shows how smart and shrewd our ex PM Narasimha Rao was...It is a different perspective of Rao...There is not an iota of doubt that Narasimha Rao provided the political support for the economic reforms and managed Parliament well! He provided a cover to the technosavvy Manmohan Singh so that he can carry on his mandated task without any fetters!
[FONT="]PV Narasimha Rao was a master tactician, a "fox" who "was remarkably decisive": Jairam Ramesh[/FONT]
[FONT="]By Ravish Tiwari, ET Bureau | 29 Aug, 2015[/FONT]
[FONT="]NEW DELHI: PV Narasimha Rao, a Congress Prime Minister the Nehru-Gandhi-led Congress has steadfastly ignored, has been hailed as a master tactician who was "magnificent" in crisis management by Jairam Ramesh, a Congress leader considered close to Nehru-Gandhis.
In his latest book, To the Brink and Back, Ramesh describes Rao as a "fox" who "was remarkably decisive" in a critical 90-day period in 1991 when India was staring at a balance of payments crisis-led economic disaster. He writes Rao was India's Deng Xiaoping (the Chinese communist leader who initiated reforms in China). Ramesh says in his book that over June, July, August of 1991, Rao demonstrated that he wasn't, unlike the general perception about him, at all indecisive.
"To borrow an analogy from Isaiah Berlin, if Manmohan Singh was the hedgehog who knew only one big thing and that is economic reforms, Rao was the fox who knew many things. It is the fox-hedgehog combine that rescued India in perhaps its darkest moment," Jairam says in his book. "India in 1991 could well have mirrored Greece in 2015. That it didn't is due to the Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh combine."
"There is no doubt that Rao was navigating India through a most troubled period ... I have to say that he was simply magnificent ... From the outset, Rao proved everybody wrong. A man who famously remarked, 'even not taking a decision is a decision' was remarkably decisive in the initial months," Jairam "...quick decisions were taken, by being exceedingly crafty as well as bold...he (Rao) propelled change".
Jairam, who was in the PMO during those critical months, gives an example of how Rao handled the dramatic rupee devaluations as the crisis broke. "A little after the first devaluation, in the early hours of July 3, he called up Manmohan Singh asking for the second devaluation to be halted .... (but) it had already been carried out that morning at 9 a.m. ... The prime minister, on his part, was clearly a reluctant protagonist in the two-step devaluation drama. But, once it happened, he defended it aggressively, both in Parliament and outside."
Subsequently, it took less than 10 hours for Rao and Singh to approve the trade policy that was announced by P Chidambaram in quick succession after two-step devaluation. The book also details how these moves were accompanied with transfer of 46.91 tonnes of gold to the Bank of England over four days - July 4, 7, 11and 18 - to raise $400 million to tide over the immediate liquidity crisis.
Ramesh writes that Rao's adroit political skills was apparent in how he promoted the first industrial reform proposal within the Cabinet.
Within a group of ministers, political heavyweights like Madhavsinh Solanki, Arjun Singh, ML Fotedar, B Shankaranand, Balram Jakhar and Rajesh Pilot objected to the new policy. Only the then commerce minister P Chidambaram "defended the reforms proposals unequivocally, addressing every single concern raised in his own inimitable style".
The policy had to repackaged "to facilitate a desirable U-turn without it seeming to be a U-turn", Ramesh writes. Rao, says Ramesh, used Congress Working Committee (CWC) and Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meetings as forums where party members could "vent their spleen freely". The then PM also engaged opposition leaders and even Marxist stalwarts like Jyoti Basu. Giving an example of Rao's political savvy, Ramesh writes that the then PM had "promised that the letter of intent to be signed with IMF would be tabled in Parliament".
This was to placate the opposition. But that document was placed in the Rajya Sabha almost after four months when "the sting of having gone to the IMF had been lost". [/FONT]
[FONT="]Ramesh himself was moved out of PMO by Rao and sent to the Planning Commission. "I could not but admire the man who was responsible for my expulsion, and who, in some ways, was the Chinese revolutionary Deng Xiaoping's counterpart in India." Ramesh writes. Ramesh subsequently was closely involved with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi when Nehru-Gandhis led Congress again after Rao. Congress under Sonia and Rahul Gandhi has never paid the kind of tribute Congress PMs receive from the party. [/FONT]
[FONT="]
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/48716892.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst[/FONT]
[FONT="]PV Narasimha Rao was a master tactician, a "fox" who "was remarkably decisive": Jairam Ramesh[/FONT]
[FONT="]By Ravish Tiwari, ET Bureau | 29 Aug, 2015[/FONT]
[FONT="]NEW DELHI: PV Narasimha Rao, a Congress Prime Minister the Nehru-Gandhi-led Congress has steadfastly ignored, has been hailed as a master tactician who was "magnificent" in crisis management by Jairam Ramesh, a Congress leader considered close to Nehru-Gandhis.
In his latest book, To the Brink and Back, Ramesh describes Rao as a "fox" who "was remarkably decisive" in a critical 90-day period in 1991 when India was staring at a balance of payments crisis-led economic disaster. He writes Rao was India's Deng Xiaoping (the Chinese communist leader who initiated reforms in China). Ramesh says in his book that over June, July, August of 1991, Rao demonstrated that he wasn't, unlike the general perception about him, at all indecisive.
"To borrow an analogy from Isaiah Berlin, if Manmohan Singh was the hedgehog who knew only one big thing and that is economic reforms, Rao was the fox who knew many things. It is the fox-hedgehog combine that rescued India in perhaps its darkest moment," Jairam says in his book. "India in 1991 could well have mirrored Greece in 2015. That it didn't is due to the Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh combine."
"There is no doubt that Rao was navigating India through a most troubled period ... I have to say that he was simply magnificent ... From the outset, Rao proved everybody wrong. A man who famously remarked, 'even not taking a decision is a decision' was remarkably decisive in the initial months," Jairam "...quick decisions were taken, by being exceedingly crafty as well as bold...he (Rao) propelled change".
Jairam, who was in the PMO during those critical months, gives an example of how Rao handled the dramatic rupee devaluations as the crisis broke. "A little after the first devaluation, in the early hours of July 3, he called up Manmohan Singh asking for the second devaluation to be halted .... (but) it had already been carried out that morning at 9 a.m. ... The prime minister, on his part, was clearly a reluctant protagonist in the two-step devaluation drama. But, once it happened, he defended it aggressively, both in Parliament and outside."
Subsequently, it took less than 10 hours for Rao and Singh to approve the trade policy that was announced by P Chidambaram in quick succession after two-step devaluation. The book also details how these moves were accompanied with transfer of 46.91 tonnes of gold to the Bank of England over four days - July 4, 7, 11and 18 - to raise $400 million to tide over the immediate liquidity crisis.
Ramesh writes that Rao's adroit political skills was apparent in how he promoted the first industrial reform proposal within the Cabinet.
Within a group of ministers, political heavyweights like Madhavsinh Solanki, Arjun Singh, ML Fotedar, B Shankaranand, Balram Jakhar and Rajesh Pilot objected to the new policy. Only the then commerce minister P Chidambaram "defended the reforms proposals unequivocally, addressing every single concern raised in his own inimitable style".
The policy had to repackaged "to facilitate a desirable U-turn without it seeming to be a U-turn", Ramesh writes. Rao, says Ramesh, used Congress Working Committee (CWC) and Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meetings as forums where party members could "vent their spleen freely". The then PM also engaged opposition leaders and even Marxist stalwarts like Jyoti Basu. Giving an example of Rao's political savvy, Ramesh writes that the then PM had "promised that the letter of intent to be signed with IMF would be tabled in Parliament".
This was to placate the opposition. But that document was placed in the Rajya Sabha almost after four months when "the sting of having gone to the IMF had been lost". [/FONT]
[FONT="]Ramesh himself was moved out of PMO by Rao and sent to the Planning Commission. "I could not but admire the man who was responsible for my expulsion, and who, in some ways, was the Chinese revolutionary Deng Xiaoping's counterpart in India." Ramesh writes. Ramesh subsequently was closely involved with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi when Nehru-Gandhis led Congress again after Rao. Congress under Sonia and Rahul Gandhi has never paid the kind of tribute Congress PMs receive from the party. [/FONT]
[FONT="]
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/48716892.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst[/FONT]
