P.V.

Narasimha Rao
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (Telugu: ; 28 June 1921 23

December 2004) who was commonly known as P. V. Narasimha Rao, served as the 10th Prime
Minister of the Republic of India.

He led one of the most important administrations in India's modern history, overseeing a major
economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security. Rao accelerated the
dismantling of the Licence Raj. Rao, also called the "Father of Indian Economic Reforms, is best
remembered for launching India's free market reforms that rescued the almost bankrupt nation
from economic collapse. He was also commonly referred to as the Chanakya of modern India
for his ability to steer tough economic and political legislation through the parliament at a time
when he headed a minority government.
Rao's term as Prime Minister was an eventful one in India's history. Besides marking a
paradigm shift from the industrializing, mixed economic model of Jawaharlal Nehru to a market
driven one, his years as Prime Minister also saw the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata
Party(BJP), a major right-wing party, as an alternative to the Indian National Congress which
had been governing India for most of its post-independence history. Rao's term also saw the
destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya which triggered one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots
in the country since its independence.
Rao's later life was marked by political isolation due to his association with corruption charges.
Rao was acquitted on all charges prior to his death in 2004 of a heart attack in New Delhi. He
was cremated in Hyderabad.

Early Life :
P.V. Narasimha Rao had "humble social origins".He was born in a Telugu 6000 NiyogiBrahmin
family at Laknepally village in Warangal District.At the age of 3 years he adopted and brought
up to Vangara village in the present-day Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh(then part of

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Hyderabad State). His father P. Ranga Rao and mother Rukminiamma hailed from agrarian
families.
Narasimha Rao was popularly known as PV. He studied Bachelor's in arts college, subedari in
warangal, and later on went to Fergusson College at the Universities of Mumbai Nagpur now
under university of Pune where he completed a Master's degree in law He could speak 13
languages including Urdu,Marathi,Kannada,Hindi,Tamil,Malayalam,Telugu,Sanskrit and Oriya
with a fluency akin to a native speaker.His mother tongue was Telugu. In addition to eight Indian
languages, he spoke English, French, Arabic,Spanish, German, Greek, Latin and Persian Along
with his distant cousin Pamulaparthi Sadasiva Rao,Ch. Raja Narendra and Devulapalli Damodar
Rao,PV edited a Telugu weekly magazine called Kakatiya Patrika in the 1940s.PV and
Sadasiva Rao used to contribute articles under the pen-name Jaya-Vijaya.
Narasimha Rao has three sons and five daughters. His eldest son P.V. Rangarao was an
education minister in Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy cabinet and MLA from HanmaKonda
Assembly Constituency for two terms. His second son P.V. Rajeshwar Rao was a Member of
Parliament of the 11th Lok Sabha (15 May 1996- 4 December1997)from secunderabad
Constituency.

Political Career :
Narasimha Rao was an active freedom fighter during the Indian Independence movement and
joined full time politics after independence as a member of the Indian National Congress.
Narasimha Rao served brief stints in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet (19621971) and as Chief
minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh (19711973). His tenure as Chief minister of Andhra
Pradesh is well remembered even today for his land reforms and strict implementation of land
ceiling acts in Telangana region. President rule had to be imposed to counter the 'Jai Andhra'
movement during his tenure.
When the Indian National Congress split in 1969 Rao stayed on the side of then Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi and remained loyal to her during the Emergency period (197577).He rose to
national prominence in 1972 for handling several diverse portfolios, most significantly Home,
Defence and Foreign Affairs (19801984), in the cabinets of both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv
Gandhi In fact it is speculated that he was in the running for the post of India's President along
with Zail Singh in 1982.
Rao very nearly retired from politics in 1991. It was the assassination of the Congress President
Rajiv Gandhi that made him make a comeback.As the Congress had won the largest number of
seats in the 1991 elections, he got the opportunity to head the minority government as Prime
Minister. He was the first person outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as Prime Minister for
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five continuous years, the first to hail from South India and also the first from the state of Andhra
Pradesh. Since Rao had not contested the general elections, he then participated in a byelection in Nandyal to join the parliament. N.T.Rama Rao (then leader of the Chief Opposition
party of Telugu Desam) did not want to put a contestant against Rao, because he was the First
Prime Minister of India from Andhra Pradesh, and NTR did not want to create an obstacle on his
path. By that, Rao won from Nandyal with a victory margin of a record 5 lakh (500,000) votes
and his win was recorded in the Guinness Book Of World Records.His cabinet included Sharad
Pawar, himself a strong contender for the Prime Minister's post, as defence minister. He also
broke convention by appointing a non-political economist and future prime minister,Manmohan
Singh as his finance minister.

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