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A little too late

When former President A P J Abdul Kalam called Rao a “patriotic statesman who believed that the nation is bigger than the political system”, he encapsulated in a few words the reason Mrs Gandhi could not stomach him when he was alive and for 16 years after his death.

A little too late

Former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. (Photo: IANS)

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the new-found regard the interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son have found for the late Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao in his centenary year was prompted by concerns that the legacy of a distinguished Congressman was likely to be hijacked by others, principally the Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao.

It is no secret that Mrs Gandhi and her family lamentably and to their eternal shame treated the late Prime Minister with disdain. In the eight odd years that he lived after his term as Prime Minister had ended, Rao was ousted from party presidentship, kept on the fringes of the organisation he had served faithfully, and abandoned as he fought off the challenge of legal cases.

When he died in 2004, so graceless were Mrs Gandhi and her coterie that his body was not allowed into the office of the All India Congress Committee and was ordered to be sent away to Hyderabad. While no one would ever explain why Mrs Gandhi had such antipathy towards a man whose counsel her mother-in-law and husband had so heavily relied on, it would seem she never forgave him for treating her with mere ceremony, and not abject obsequiousness, during his stint as Prime Minister.

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To his credit, Manmohan Singh, the next Congress prime minister and Rao’s finance minister during an epochal term that saw the economic transformation of India, was always charitable to his mentor and ready to acknowledge the role he had played in the period from 1991 to 1996. But not even Mr Singh, despite being Prime Minister, was able to ensure that Rao got the recognition he deserved from his party in the years after his death.

On Friday, Mrs Gandhi found it possible to acknowledge Rao’s bold leadership and his role in “paving the economic transformation” of India as a “dedicated Congressman who served the country devotedly.” Sadly for her, this acknowledgment comes at a time when Rao’s legacy scarcely needs certification, and certainly not from her.

While Rao was heavily criticised during his term in office, principally for failing to prevent the demolition of the Babari Mosque in Ayodhya, and for his alleged role in the JMM bribery case (he was exonerated of these charges), history has been far kinder to him with several commentators having extolled the role he played in liberalising the economy, in crafting India’s Look East policy, in normalising ties with Israel and in the country’s nuclear programme.

Indeed, many in the Congress and outside have rated him as one of India’s best Prime Ministers. When former President A P J Abdul Kalam called Rao a “patriotic statesman who believed that the nation is bigger than the political system”, he encapsulated in a few words the reason Mrs Gandhi could not stomach him when he was alive and for 16 years after his death. A laconic man with a wry sense of humour, Rao, if alive today, would have enjoyed a quiet chuckle.

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