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“Delighted to share that our former Prime Minister, Shri PV Narasimha Rao Garu, will be honoured with the Bharat Ratna,” PM Modi announced the government’s decision on X (formally Twitter).
The former PM is best known for the economic reforms that he introduced, which were continued even by the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments.Rao’s tenure was significant as he was the second person from a non-Hindi-speaking state to hold the office and the first from a southern state.
His stint in formal politics began in the year 1957 when he was elected as an MLA from the Manthani constituency in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. In a period of 12 years, he was given a chance to lead the state. After attaining power, he implemented Land Reforms and Land Ceiling Acts strictly.
A loyalist of Indira Gandhi and Rajeev Gandhi, he was applauded for completing his five-year tenue in the minority government. A convention was also broken by him when he appointed a non-political economist Manmohan Singh as his finance minister.
In addition to the political achievements, Rao was a known figure in the literary circle. Rao established the Telugu Academy. He spoke 17 languages, including nine Indian languages (Hindi, Oriya, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu, besides Telugu).
His command over Marathi was developed when he shifted to Maharashtra and joined the Fergusson College in Pune for a B.Sc course. Owing to this, he later translated Hari Narayan Apte’s Marathi novel ‘Pan Lakshat Kon Gheto’ (But Who Pays Attention?) into Telugu.
Rao briefly worked as a journalist with the newspaper ‘Kakatiya’, run by philosopher Pamulaparthy Sadasiva Rao. He wrote under the pen name of Jaya-Vijaya (his daughters). Later, he wrote his autobiography titled ‘The Insider’, which was influenced by his political career. Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao said the former PM is eligible to get the Bharat Ratna award, the highest civilian award. The state has also decided to build a memorial in city for Rao.
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