Lone Loyalist: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is one of the few Congressmen to attend Rao’s birth anniversary celebrations in 2011.
Notes
EPIGRAPH
1. There is some dispute on the date of the Bhagvata Purana (though the myths themselves predate the books). Some scholars date it to 900 AD (see, for example, Ithamar Theodor, ‘The Parināma Aesthetics as Underlying the Bhāgavatapurāna’, Asian Philosophy 17, no. 2, 109–25, 2007, 109). The Encyclopaedia Britannica dates it to around 1000 AD (see http://www.britannica.com/topic/Bhagavata-purana). Some Hindu scholars say it dates even earlier, to 6th century AD or before (see https://www.jiva.org/dating-of-the-bhagavat-purana/).
1. HALF-BURNT BODY
1. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
2. Interview with Chandraswami in Delhi, 2015.
3. Interviews with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao and P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
4. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.
5. Interview with S. Vani Devi in Hyderabad, 2015.
6. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
7. ‘Leaders pay last respects to Rao’, The Hindu, 25 December 2004, http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122504721200.htm.
8. Ibid.
9. ‘Rao fails to get resting place in Delhi’, the Times of India, 25 December 2004, 1.
10. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.
11. ‘Rao fails to get resting place in Delhi’, the Times of India, 25 December 2004, 1.
12. ‘Cortege carrying PV’s body arrives’, The Hindu, 25 December 2004, http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122509320400.htm.
13. Ibid.
14. ‘Homage paid to Rao’, The Hindu, 25 December 2004, 1, http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122512810102.htm.
15. ‘Manmohan to lead mourners at Narasimha Rao’s funeral’, The Hindu, 25 December 2004, http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122503310600.htm.
16. Interview with K. Natwar Singh in New Delhi, 2016.
17. ‘Nation bids adieu to Narasimha Rao’, The Hindu, 26 December 2004, 1, http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/26/stories/2004122605320100.htm.
18. Ibid.
19. ‘Family revives Rao’s funeral pyre’, the Tribune, 26 December 2004, http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20041227/nation.htm#4.
20. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.
21. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
22. Interview with Sanjaya Baru in New Delhi, 2015.
23. Interview with Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, 2015.
24. Interview with Captain V. Lakshmikantha Rao in Warangal (now in Telangana state), 2015.
25. Interview with K. Natwar Singh in New Delhi, 2016.
26. Ramachandra Guha, ‘The Great Unmentionable’, the Telegraph, Kolkata, 27 March 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100327/jsp/opinion/story_12252417.jsp.
27. Interview with Jairam Ramesh in New Delhi, 2015.
28. ‘Babri wouldn’t have fallen if a Gandhi was PM: Rahul’, the Times of India, 20 March 2007, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Babri-wouldnt-have-fallen-if-a-Gandhi-was-PM-Rahul/articleshow/1781018.cms .
29. Arjun Singh (with Ashok Chopra), A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time: An Autobiography (New Delhi: Hay House India, 2012), 179.
30. Zoya Hasan, Congress after Indira: Policy, Power, Political Change (1984–2009), (New Delhi: OUP India, 2012), 2.
31. Interview with Salman Khurshid in New Delhi, 2015.
32. Somnath Chatterjee, Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a Parliamentarian (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2010), 111.
33. ‘Former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao’s Life History to Be Taught in Telangana Schools’, NDTV, 28 June 2015, http://www.ndtv.com/telangana-news/former-prime-minister-narasimha-rao-s-life-history-to-be-taught-in-telangana-schools-776083.
34. ‘KCR bats for Bharat Ratna to P V Narasimha Rao on his 93rd birth anniversary; Naidu calls ex-PM a “legend”’, the Indian Express, 28 June 2014, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/kcr-bats-for-bharat-ratna-to-p-v-narasimha-rao-on-his-93rd-birth-anniversary-naidu-calls-ex-pm-a-legend/.
35. Interview with Arun Jaitley in New Delhi, 2015.
36. ‘Award Bharat Ratna to Rao: Swamy’, The Hindu, 24 December 2004, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/bharat-ratna-for-pv-narasimha-rao-swamy/article7489611.ece.
37. Radhika Saraf, ‘The myth of the great Indian Middle class: Roughly 30 per cent of India’s population still lives below the poverty line’, Daily Mail, 19 May 2013, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2327182/The-myth-great-Indian-Middle-class-Roughly-30-Indias-population-lives-poverty-line.html.
38. This is only one estimate, by the Asian Development Bank. But many other estimates place it at least over 120 million. See Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi, ‘India’s Middle Class: Growth Engine or Loose Wheel?’, the New York Times, 13 May 2013, http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/indias-middle-class-growth-engine-or-loose-wheel/?_r=0.
39. ‘From 1947 to 2014: How the Indian economy has changed since independence’, Firstpost, 15 August 2004, http://www.firstpost.com/business/data-business/from-1947-to-2014-how-the-indian-economy-has-changed-since-independence-1983853.html.
40. World Bank data, available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR.
41. Ibid.
42. Data from Department of Telecommunications and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India. Sunil Mani, ‘India’s Telecommunications Industry’, available at http://www.nistads.res.in/indiasnt2008/t4industry/t4ind14.htm.
43. ‘India Has 100.69 Crore Total Telephone Subscribers’, NDTV, 1 September 2015, http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-has-100-69-crore-total-telephone-subscribers-1213248.
44. See http://telecomtalk.info/total-number-tv-channels-india/139844/.
45. Email exchange with Ramachandra Guha, 2016.
46. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
2. ANDHRA SOCIALIST, 1921–71
1. V.R. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao (Hyderabad: Satya Publications, 1992), 23.
2. A ‘peer’ is a Sufi master. Story from an interview with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
3. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 24.
4. Convocation address at Telugu University, Hyderabad, on 7 July 1991. Available in P.V. Narasimha Rao Selected Speeches 1991–1992, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1993, p. 239.
5. While Narasimha Rao had some knowledge of more than thirteen languages, the ones he could speak well were English, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Sanskrit, Persian, Spanish, Hindi and Oriya.
6. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2007), 53.
7. Milton W. Meyer, Asia: A Concise History (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 218.
8. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, 66.
9. Quoting Smith in Lucien D. Benichou, From Autocracy To Integration (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, Kindle edition, 2014), 374.
10. N. Purendra Prasad, ‘Agrarian Class and Caste Relations in “United” Andhra 1956–2014’, Economic&Political Weekly, L(16), 18 April 2015, 78.
11. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao (on phone) in 2016.
12. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 24.
13. Benichou, From Autocracy To Integration, 752.
14. Author’s visit to Vangara village, 2015.
15. P.V. Narasimha Rao, The Insider (New Delhi: Viking, 1998), 15.
16. Benichou, From Autocracy To Integration, 462–66.
17. Rao, The Insider,13.
18. Interview with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
19. Ibid.
20. Interview
with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
21. Rao, The Insider, 8–9.
22. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
23. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 24–25.
24. Rao, The Insider, 51.
25. Ibid., 15.
26. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 29.
27. Ibid., 28.
28. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 1993), 37.
29. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 36.
30. Ibid., 37–39.
31. Benichou, From Autocracy To Integration, 1070.
32. Ibid.
33. Rao, The Insider, 426.
34. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao (on phone), 2016.
35. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
36. Ibid.
37. Sunil Purushotham, ‘Internal Violence: The “Police Action” in Hyderabad’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 57, no. 2 (2015): 437.
38. Official Congress party history, available at http://aicc.org.in/web.php/history/detail/16#.VvlaTxFN10c.
39. P.V. Narasimha Rao, ‘Swami Ramananda Tirtha A Sacred Memory’, New Swatantra Times (special annual number), 2014, 12.
40. Interview with Satchidananda Swamy in Bangalore, 2015.
41. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 80.
42. Purushotham, ‘Internal Violence: The “Police Action” in Hyderabad’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 442.
43. Ibid., 452.
44. Rao, The Insider, 105.
45. Rajni Kothari, ‘The Congress “System” in India’, Asian Survey, 4, no. 12 (December 1964): 1161–73.
46. Interview with S. Vani Devi in Hyderabad, 2015.
47. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, 143.
48. Ibid., 144.
49. Official Election Commission results of the 1951–52 General Election, available at http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/StatisticalReports/LS_1951/VOL_1_51_LS.PDF.
50. Rao, ‘Swami Ramananda Tirtha A Sacred Memory’, 14.
51. Interview with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao (on phone), 2016.
55. Interview with villagers in Vangara (in 2015) and with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
56. These regions had formed Andhra state in 1953, which became Andhra Pradesh in 1956 after the merger of Telangana.
57. Rao, The Insider, 115.
58. Ibid., 243.
59. Adiraju, The Right Prime Minister: A Political Biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 92.
60. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao (on phone), 2016.
61. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
62. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 46.
63. Ibid., 47.
64. J. Vengala Rao, Naa Jeevitha Katha (My Life’s Story). English translation provided to the author by Jairam Ramesh in 2016.
65. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
66. Interview with Venkat Kishen Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
67. The phrase was used by Ram Manohar Lohia. See Shekhar Gupta, ‘Turning Lohiaji on his head’, the Indian Express, 1 March 2012, http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/turning-lohiaji-on-his-head/917582/.
68. Interview with Rakesh Mohan in Washington, D.C., 2015.
69. Ibid.
70. Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
71. Samanth Subramanian, ‘Nostalgia sets in as time runs out for India’s beloved watch’, the National, 28 March2016, http://www.thenational.ae/world/india/nostalgia-sets-in-as-time-runs-out-for-indias-beloved-watch.
72. Shankkar Aiyar, Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change (New Delhi: Aleph Books, Kindle edition, 2013), 478.
73. Ibid., 657.
74. Daman Singh, Strictly Personal: Manmohan & Gursharan (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2014), 353.
75. The phrase was first coined by the economist Raj Krishna. See Meera Siva, ‘What’s a “Hindu” rate of growth’, The Hindu BusinessLine, 8 June 2013, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/portfolio/technically/whats-a-hindu-rate-of-growth/article4795173.ece.
76. Aiyar, Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change, 651.
77. This is dealt with in detail in chapter 9 (‘A Welfare State?’) of this book.
78. ‘Poll manifesto: A.P. chief minister firm’, the Times of India, 7 May 1972, 11.
3. PUPPET CHIEF MINISTER, 1971–73
1. ‘Implementation of land reforms: A Review by the Land Reforms Implementation Committee of the National Development Council 1966’, 275, http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/publications/pub1966land.pdf.
2. Ibid.
3. Interview with Atul Kohli in Princeton, 2015.
4. K. Srinivasulu, ‘Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh’ (2002), cited in N. Purendra Prasad, ‘Agrarian Class and Caste Relations in “United” Andhra 1956–2014’, Economic&Political Weekly, L(16), 18 April 2015, 78.
5. Interview with Captain V. Lakshmikantha Rao in Warangal, 2015.
6. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 58.
7. P.V. Narasimha Rao, ‘Change with stability: The Chief Minister’s Burden’, ed., B.N. Pandey, Leadership in South Asia (Noida: Vikas Publishing, 1977), 9–12.
8. ‘Brahmananda has the last word’, the Times of India, 26 September 1971, 1.
9. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
10. Ibid.
11. Interview with K. Vivek Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
12. ‘Biggest Ever Andhra Cabinet Sworn in’, the Times of India, 21 March 1972, 12.
13. P.V.R.K. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond (Hyderabad: Emesco Books, 2012), 19.
14. Ibid.
15. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
16. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 36.
17. ‘Ramanand Tirth is Dead’, the Times of India, 23 January 1972, 1.
18. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao (on phone), 2016.
19. Interview with B.P.R. Vithal in Hyderabad, 2015.
20. Interview with P.V.R.K. Prasad in Hyderabad, 2015.
21. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
22. Interview with Chandraswami in Delhi, 2015.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Transcript of interview of P.V. Narasimha Rao with the journalist Neerja Chowdhary; copy found among Narasimha Rao’s private papers in 2015.
26. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
27. Ibid.
28. ‘Land Bill Introduced in Assembly: STATE LEGISLATURES’, the Times of India, 1 August 1972, 6.
29. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
30. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
31. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
32. ‘Choice of C.M.s’, the Times of India, 15 March 1972, 1.
33. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 61.
34. Interview with P.V. Prabhakara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
35. Interview with Captain V. Lakshmikantha Rao in Warangal, 2015.
36. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 64.
37. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
38. Narendra Reddy et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 66.
39. ‘Narasimha Rao welcomes court ruling’, the Times of India, 4 October 1972, 6.
40. Narendra Reddy
et al., P.V. Narasimha Rao: Years of Power, 66.
41. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 37–38.
42. Ibid., 39.
43. ‘President’s Rule to be Imposed on A.P.’, the Times of India, 17 January 1973, 1.
44. Prasad, Wheels behind the Veil: PMs, CMs and beyond, 41.
4. EXILE, 1973–74
1. Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011), 50.
2. Ibid., p. 53.
3. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
4. ‘Plea for government in AP under Narasimha’, the Times of India, 29 October 1973, 7.
5. Interview with P.V. Sharath Babu, nephew of P.V. Narasimha Rao, in Vangara, 2015.
6. Vengala Rao, Naa Jeevitha Katha (My Life’s Story).
7. Amarnath K. Menon, ‘Revealing Rao’, India Today, 30 September 1996, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/former-andhra-pradesh-cm-vengala-raos-autobiography-rips-apart-narasimha-rao/1/282385.html.
8. Interview with Narsa Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
9. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
10. Ibid.
11. Interview with S. Vani Devi in Hyderabad, 2015.
12. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
13. Ibid.
14. Interview with S. Vani Devi in Hyderabad, 2015.
15. Interview with Gopalkrishna Gandhi in Chennai, 2015.
16. Transcript of interview of P.V. Narasimha Rao with the journalist Neerja Chowdhary; copy found among Narasimha Rao’s private papers in 2015.
17. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
18. Interview with M. Narayan Reddy in Hyderabad, 2015.
19. P.V. Narasimha Rao, ‘Change with Stability: The Chief Minister’s Burden’, 24–26.
20. Ibid.
21. Sanjay Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (forthcoming).
22. Interview with P.V. Rajeshwara Rao in Hyderabad, 2015.
23. Ibid.
24. Interview with Saraswathi Kalvakota (on phone) in the United States, 2015.
Half - Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India Page 33