Fortnight ago my brother Venugopal, who is into active politics, presently an AICC member and General Secretary and chairman Protocal APCC,when he went to Delhi Jai Ram Ramesh gave him a book written by him called 'To The Brink and Back- India's 1991 story' which hit stands on 30/8/15. I was eager to read it as before its release some of its excerpts were released to the press, which piqued my curiosity.Jai Ram Ramesh, 60, hails from Chikmaglur of Karnataka, is an MP Rajya Sabha from AP. He is considered an intellectual and knows nitty gritties of Congress and it's first family. He academic qualifications include IITian from Mumbai, MS from Carnegie Mellon University, a graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former union minister. He is an Economist par excellence, now a politician and senior leader in Congress,having joined World Bank and inducted into Planning Commission by Manmohan Singh, along with other bureaucrats Rakesh Mohan and Anil Virmani. And also these three joined PMO when P.V.Narasimha Rao took over the reigns.
At the out set, I would recommend everyone to read it once to know the inside account of the story and first 100 days of PV as PM of India. The language, is very lucid and makes the reader inquistive. It had created a buzz for many reasons. In one of the interviews Jai Ram Ramesh, having said that many eyebrows would be raised since he praised PV in this book. He said that three main reasons for releasing this book now is because one, we are approaching the 25th anniversary of the economic reforms of 1991, which is an occasion to look back, secondly full and insider pespection of how the economic reforms process unraveled as there was no inside account. Thirdly after 2014, Lok Sabha defeat Jai Ram had lot of time at his disposal to be intellectually busy. He further clarified that there is nothing oral in this book, everything is based on written evidence.
Jai Ram seems to be a principled guy, who does not speak on behalf of Congress unless he is authorised to do so. Therefore he says in the interview, he is not reflecting the party's views. But once to put the records straight so that P. V could be portrayed in a new light and unearths hidden aspects of his personality. The manner in which he ran the government during these crucial days etc.
Jai Ram says PV is a master tactician for a "fox" who was "magnificent" in crisis management. In the first 100 days of 1991, when India was starting at balance of payments crisis- led economic disaster he was compared to india's Den Xiaoping, a Chinese communist leader who initiated reforms in China. It is said in the book that over June, July, August 1991 Rao demonstrated that he wasn't unlike the general perception about him at all indeciesiveness. "To borrow an anology from Isaiah, Berlin, if Manmohan Singh was the hedgehog who knows only one big thing and that is economic reforms, which Rao was the "fox" who knows many things. It is the "fox-hedgehog combine that rescued India in perhaps it's darkest moment. "
It is said that PV used to say- doing a u-turn without it seeming to be a u-turn, is an art, and narrated a small incident, " Political packaging was essential in getting industrial reforms through. The cabinet rejected it, yet four days later, the cabinet approved it- what was different was, the political and historical contexts. The policy text into the cabinet note was same, but we added a preamble on how previous policies were leading to this. The last words were " These reforms are continuity with change." The author of this preamble was none other than Jai Ram himself.
As we all know PV confronted huge challenges and was simply magnificent. Manmohan Singh said repeatedly that he would have achieved nothing without Rao's backing and this aspect has been very clearly described in this book. He deserved a high place in economic history for challenging IMF approval, a painful austerity and focusing instead in a few key challenges that produced fast growth with minimum pain. 20 years after the start of Indian economic miracle, let us remember India's most undeterred prime minister- Narasimha Rao. Here again, I totally appreciate KCR and his government for recommending his name for Bharat Ratna which he richly deserves. Let us him best and hope that Modi and his government would certainly consider it favourably.
