28th June - birthday of The most under rated Prime minister- P V Narasimha Rao

vijay wrote:

PV and Congress cannot be separated as @Usha does to absolve PV. Like every leader he had good and bad points, but after he is no more let us remember the good he did esp to change dramatically the Indian economy. 

 

Well said. Instead of picking the holes why people should see his weaknesses. There is no human who has not committed a mistake. It's only those who do not work will not commit mistakes. It should be remembered that the schemers behind the screens made him scapegoat .The weakness of PV was well utilized by the Congress party.

PV will be remembered by the Nation for his economic reforms. Like it or leave it.

Mistakes and criminal acts are two different things. I had earlier also written that Indians have a habit of glossing over things and procrastinating on issues and that is the reason we will never catch up to china or ever dominate the world.  Why not call a spade a spade.?

I'm an optimist. Criminal acts committed unknowingly is also a crime. But I look with hope. Hope is lost, everything is ,lost.

Today's TOI carries a news item stating that a memorial has been built for PV at Delhi where other PM's have memorials. That should satisfy his supporters.

Certainly he deserves a memorial. Naturally I'm delighted, though I'm not an ardent supporter of PV.

I am of the view  that any objective and critical evaluation of a person should not unduly attach greater weightage to any particular facet of his or her character. Late Rao was a kind of character defying all efforts to understand him. A polyglot, a rare scholar, an original thinker. Rao took over the reins when his party was passing through one of its worst crisis and the country the worst ever in the economic domain. And it goes to his that he came wonderfully on top despite leading a minority government. On the seamy his greatest failure for which history won't forgive was to prevent demolition of Babri Masjid. He ought to have acted with firmness and more decisiveness and here again the principal villain Rajiv Gandhi who perpetrated the grand communal thuggery on this nation, first by unjustly denying Shah Bano her basic human and constitutional rights and then shamelessly attempted to offset this outrageous communal act by another flagrant communal act - unlocking the Ram temple at Ayodhya , is seldom mentioned. What Rao inherited was the makings of another Gandhi! All said I don't. consider Rao to be less deserving of a memorial than some whose memorials grace(?) the national capital.

While agreeing with Chimnoy, I'd like to add  more facts related to PV as he was fondly remembered

from a snake charmers land to an IT hub and a major economic hub, PV changed the image of India

He revolted against the Nizam and was trained as a guerilla fighter.

He was the first to have questioned the dynasty rule. This made him branded as Arrogant.

Fluent in more than 13 languages, well versed with subjects related to economics, law, history, politics & arts, he was rightly called the scholar among politicians.

Here is an excellent article about PV. Narasimha rao

http://guruprasad.net/posts/p-v-narasimha-rao-the-forgotten-hero-and-architect-of-modern-india/

PV was a seasoned politician of the old school. Rajiv Gandhi was a novice who could be misled by vested advisors. 

It happened. Rajiv was misguided. PV was ignored and insulted. PV was looked down. He was treated like an outdated antique in a museum.

PV was niether ignored nor insulted. Please understand unless a leader is followed by his or her progeny they are one amongst the so many who come and go. Why do we remember the Ambanis and the Birlas is because of dynastic succession. If PV was followed by his son he too would have recd a different treatment. Who remembers V P Singh or I K gujral or Chandrashekhar or even Advani or Vajpayee. But we remember Nehru and Gandhis because of dynastic successions. PV rose to his peak and has melted away in the pot of time to become a para in India's history. No need to feel sorry or hurt. That is te way of the world.

You are right Vijay. PV's biggest undoing was not  having successor to enable him to create a "PV Dynasty. "

I don't subscribe to this line of thought that sons and daughters help in perpetuating the memory of their parents all the time. We have examples galore in our midst disproving this construct. For example Nehru's fame and stature won't have scarely dented by deeds or misdeeds by his descendants. There are many luminaries whose glory continue to dazzle us without any conscious efforts from any quarters or any person like Sardar Patel, Netaji and many others. Interestingly there are two kinds of activities which fetch eternal fame and notoriety. And Sonia Gandhi and the party she leads practiced in relation to late Rao a meanness of a sickening kind. With all efforts to demonize ,demean and degrade him, he may have earned a permanent place in Indian history.

There is no need for a memorial for each and every politician or for anyone else for that matter, it is a human weakness that exists to glorify others and hope they would be glorified some day ...as long as a person is remembered for his good deeds and contributions , and not made the scapegoat for all things gone wrong which is what has happened with PVN now

Memorials make little or no difference. It's the work one puts up which is good for the Nation and the society that counts.

chinmoymukherjee wrote:

I don't subscribe to this line of thought that sons and daughters help in perpetuating the memory of their parents all the time. We have examples galore in our midst disproving this construct. For example Nehru's fame and stature won't have scarely dented by deeds or misdeeds by his descendants. There are many luminaries whose glory continue to dazzle us without any conscious efforts from any quarters or any person like Sardar Patel, Netaji and many others. Interestingly there are two kinds of activities which fetch eternal fame and notoriety. And Sonia Gandhi and the party she leads practiced in relation to late Rao a meanness of a sickening kind. With all efforts to demonize ,demean and degrade him, he may have earned a permanent place in Indian history.

Lal Bahadur Shastri is another leader who is not remembered the way he should be, and his son was never a leading politician in Congress, one hradly gets to hear of him these days..

That's how the things went in the erstwhile rule (Mis) of congress.