Category Personalities

Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is often referred to as the “Father of Indian Economic Reforms”. Future prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh continued the economic reform policies pioneered by Rao’s government. He employed Dr. Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister to embark on historic economic transition.

Former Indian Foreign Minister Inder Kumar Gujral says Mr. Rao will be remembered as the father of India’s economic reforms. He says when Mr. Rao became the prime minister the Indian economy was in bad shape. It was very difficult at the time to introduce new ideas, new philosophies, and to convince people to support him on something untested. The Indian public and politicians at the time did not believe that they could try something new and get out of the mess but Mr. Rao persisted and persevered. Mr. Gujral adds Mr. Rao will always be remembered for pioneering far-reaching economic changes in India, which took India on a new economic path.

Mr. Rao is credited with launching free market reforms that opened up India’s stagnant, socialist economy. The shift turned the bankrupt nation into a regional economic powerhouse. According to government figures, India’s economy has posted an average growth rate of six percent since 1990 and poverty rates have fallen by 10 percent.

Prime Minister Rao was the first Indian leader outside the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to complete a full five-year term. However, his term was not free from controversy. In 1992 Hindu zealots demolished the 500-year-old Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya. The destruction of the mosque triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim violence that claimed thousands of lives.

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Chaudhary Charan Singh (23 December 1902 – 29 May 1987) served as the 5th Prime Minister of India between 28 July 1979 and 14 January 1980. Historians and people alike frequently refer to him as the ‘champion of India’s peasants.’

In his cameo as prime minister, two-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and union home and finance minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh became the face of farmers and their needs. In his tenure, he introduced various policies to improve the lives and conditions of the farmers. The principal architect of the UP Zamindari Abolition Act, Singh has also authored books on zamindari abolition, land reforms and the establishment of an economically self-sufficient peasantry in UP.

To relieve the farmers of moneylenders, he introduced the Debt Redemption Bill in 1939 in the state assembly. Land Utilisation Bill, drafted by Singh in April 1939, aimed to “transfer the proprietary interest in agricultural holdings of UP to such of the tenants or actual tillers of the soil who chose to deposit an amount equivalent to ten times the annual rent in the government treasury to the account of the landlord”.

Rooting for a rural democracy, Singh opposed a resolution of joint, co-operative farming passed in 1959 by Congress — a party he defected from only to form the largest “most successful agrarian party in modern Indian politics, the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD), which later, under different names, also became the core of the opposition”.

Owing to the leader’s contribution to India’s agrarian concerns, Singh’s memorial in New Delhi is named Kisan Ghat.

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The BJP, which registered a historic win in 2014 by emerging as the first party in three decades to secure a majority on its own, again scripted its name in history after the results threw a stronger number for its existing government.

After this win, PM Modi has become the first non-Congress full majority prime minister to get re-elected with a stronger majority.

In the first general election held in 1951-52, Nehru won a massive mandate of 364 out of 489 seats. In the second general elections held in 1957, the Congress won 371 seats out of the 494. Securing another landslide victory in his third and final election campaign, the Indian National Congress in 1962 won 361 out of the 494 seats.

The BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee had registered another historic victory in 1999 general election when it became the first ever non-Congress government to complete its full tenure in power. 

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Manmohan Singh (born 26 September 1932) is an Indian economist, academic, and politician who served as the 13th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. The first Sikh in office, Singh was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.

Manmohan Singh is a graduate of Panjab University, Chandigarh, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford. After serving as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India, Singh was appointed as the Union Minister of Finance in 1991 by then-Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. During his tenure as the Finance Minister, Singh was widely credited for carrying out economic reforms in India in 1991 which resulted in the end of the infamous Licence Raj system.

After completing his D.Phil, Singh worked for UNCTAD (1966–1969). During the 1970s, he taught at the University of Delhi and worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade with the Cabinet Minister for Foreign Trade Lalit Narayan Mishra and for Finance Ministry of India. In 1982, he was appointed the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and held the post until 1985. He went on to become the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India from 1985 to 1987.

Singh was first elected to the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, in 1991 and was re-elected in 2001 and 2007. From 1998 to 2004, while the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, Singh was the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. In 1999, he ran for the Lok Sabha from South Delhi but was unable to win the seat.

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Indra Kumar Gujral (4 December 1919 – 30 November 2012) was an Indian politician and freedom activist who served as the 12th Prime Minister of India from April 1997 to March 1998.

Born in British India, he was influenced by nationalistic ideas as a student, and joined the All India Students Federation and the Communist Party of India. He was imprisoned for taking part in the Quit India movement. After independence, he joined the Indian National Congress party in 1964, and became a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha.

He was the Minister of Information and Broadcasting during the emergency. In 1976, he was appointed as the Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union. In 1996, he became the Minister of External Affairs in the Deve Gowda ministry, and developed the Gujral doctrine during this period. He was appointed as the 12th Prime Minister of India in 1997. His tenure lasted for less than a year.

Shri Gujral belongs to a family of freedom fighters: both his parents participated in the freedom struggle in Punjab. At the young age of eleven, he himself actively participated in the freedom struggle in 1931 and was arrested and severely beaten by the police for organising movement of young children in the Jhelum town. In 1942, he was jailed during the Quit India Movement.

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Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (29 February 1896 – 10 April 1995) was an Indian independence activist and served between 1977 and 1979 as the 4th Prime Minister of India and led the government formed by the Janata Party. During his long career in politics, he held many important posts in government such as Chief Minister of Bombay State, Home Minister, Finance Minister and 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of India.

He is the oldest person to hold the office of prime minister, at the age of 81, in the history of Indian politics. He subsequently retired from all political posts, but continued to campaign for the Janata Party in 1980. He was conferred with India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. He died at the age of 99 in 1995.

Morarji Desai was born into a Gujarati Anavil Brahmin family. His father name is Ranchhodji Nagarji Desai and his mother name is Vajiaben Desai. He was born in Bhadeli village, Bulsar district, Bombay Presidency, British India (present-day Valsad district, Gujarat, India) on 29 February 1896, the eldest of eight children. His father was a school teacher.

Desai then joined the freedom struggle under Mahatma Gandhi and joined the civil disobedience movement against British rule in India. He spent many years in jail during the freedom struggle and owing to his sharp leadership skills and tough spirit, he became a favourite amongst freedom-fighters and an important leader of the Indian National Congress in the Gujarat region. When provincial elections were held in 1934 and 1937, Desai was elected and served as the Revenue Minister and Home Minister of the Bombay Presidency.

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