25 years of reforms: PV Narasimha Rao, the man of that moment

A visual history of the 1991 budget requires both a contextual and particular approach. The latter style, focusing almost on prime minister PV Narasimha Rao as the hero of liberalisation, aided by his sidekick Manmohan Singh, leaves out the wider forces that perhaps would have led nearly any serious leader to the same solution.

There is also a material aspect to any story which photographs bring back to us. The sheer weight of preparing for the budget in a still largely paperbound environment.

But things were about to change. The next budget, in February 1992, which confirmed that the promises of 1991 were here to stay, was the first to be televised. Computers were moving in and in time the weight of paper would be greatly reduced, if not disappear entirely.

The first Budget of 1991, an interim one before the election, was presented by Yashwant Sinha in his Janata Dal days. Ten years later, as the BJP’s finance minister, he would make the sensible shift to delivering the budget at 11 am.

Also Read: One-stop guide to India's 25 years of reforms

Here, perhaps, is where the particular matters because Narasimha Rao was oddly well-placed to be the PM for such changing times. Rao was rumoured to consult astrologers and assiduously collected religious blessings – though he cannily ensured they came from all faiths.

Yet he enthusiastically took to computers and new technology. We can only regret that we could never see how his gnomic wit would have worked on Twitter. He was a staunch Congressman, yet made friends across party lines.

He seemed a profoundly Indian figure with his dhoti and the pout of an ageing uncle, yet he could move easily in international circles, both diplomatic and business. He seemed the consummate backroom politician, yet had an appreciation for crusading novelists like Marquez who hold such politicians to account — and that he could write his own novel, called The Insider, suggests at least some level of self-knowledge.



Perhaps a time of transitions needed a man like Rao who could cross boundaries with ease. That is why this visual history of 1991, taken from the Times Archives, shows both the man and the wider world.