Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of the country, who is (in)famous for his silence, has dropped a bomb on the legacy of former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, who was also his ‘Guru’. Singh has blamed Rao for the 1984 Sikh genocide, which was allegedly carried out by Congress party members on the behest of Rajiv Gandhi. It is believed that Rajiv wanted to take revenge of his mother’s murder, who was killed by her Sikh bodyguards, in the wake of Operation Blue Star.
“When the sad event of 1984 took place, Gujral ji on that very sad evening went to the then Home Minister PV Narasimha Rao and said to him that the situation is so grave that it is necessary for the government to call the army at the earliest. If that advice would have been heeded, perhaps the massacre that took place in 1984 could have been avoided,” said Manmohan Singh, in a speech to mark 100th birth anniversary of country’s former prime minister I K Gujral.
More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed, mainly in Delhi, in the targeted killings, rape, and humiliation of Sikhs allegedly by the members of Congress party. Rajiv Gandhi had justified the killing of Sikhs and said, “Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little”
Ok #ManmohanSingh 1984 was avoidable but IT WAS NOT AVOIDED. Congress Goоns led by Tytler & Sajjan under Rajiv Gandhi control went on rampage murdеring Sikhs. We know you are SPINELESS but AS A SIKH dont whitewash sins of Rajiv Gandhi by putting blame on PVNR #1984SikhGenocide pic.twitter.com/b0UKRLoNEC
— Rosy (@rose_k01) December 5, 2019
After Manmohan Singh’s comment on Rao, the social media took him head on, and #ManmohanSingh is trending on Twitter.
The biographer of Rao- Vinay Sitapati, in the book titled Half – Lion: How P.V Narasimha Rao Transformed India, argued that although, Rao was Union Home Minister when the riots took place, but, he was instructed to not interfere in the matter. Rao was given clear cut instruction that all the matters related to Sikh riots will be directly handled by Prime Minister (Rajiv Gandhi was appointed PM after Indira Gandhi’s death)’s office.
“As I point out, he got a phone call in the evening of October 31 from someone very close to Rajiv Gandhi in the PMO that violence against Sikhs was likely and that there was a need for a coordinated response and the PMO was going to take all the policing functions into its hands,” Sitapaty writes in his book.
Given the anti-Sikh sentiments in the country at the time of riots, and the all-powerful, all pervasive PMO, there is nothing Rao could have done to stop the riots.
A few weeks after the riots, Rajiv Gandhi asked the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha, and fresh elections were held. Riding on the sympathy wave around the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi won a historic mandate with 414 seats out of 541. People like Jagdish Tytler, who publicly announced award on Sikh pagdi (proof of dead bodies), were given prominent post in the Indian National Congress after the riots.
The massacre was ‘organized’ by senior leaders of Congress. Thousands of Sikh families were displaced due to riots and many Sikhs were killed in the riots. Women were raped and children were burned. The centre of massacre was Delhi, and almost 20,000 Sikhs left the city to escape from brutalities of rioters led by leaders of Congress party. Despite the scale of massacre and grave human rights violations, Congress party gave tickets to people involved in 2004 general elections, too. Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, R. K. Anand– all prime accused of 1984 Sikh massacre were given ticket in 2004 general election.
Since Sonia Gandhi took the reins of the Congress in late 1990s, the party had made Rao the ‘scapegoat’. The party blamed Rao for Babri Masjid demolition, and the rise of BJP. When the party had to take credit for economic reforms, it highlighted the role of Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for economic liberalization. And whenever the party had to take support of leftist-Communist parties, it blamed Rao for economic reforms, which, according to Communists, took the country into dark era of Capitalism.
A few months ago, NV Subhash, grandson of Rao sought an official apology from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for not giving due credit to the former Prime Minister who steered India from an economic crisis in the nineties and ushered economic liberalisation in India. “All failures of the Congress party have been attributed to PV Narasimha Rao and his contributions have not been credited to him. I demand that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi should apologise, and come and pay their tributes to him,” said the late statesman’s grandson, Subhash.
In a speech to mark the 125th anniversary of the INC in 2009, party president Sonia Gandhi had praised contributions of all Prime Ministers from the Congress except those of PV Narasimha Rao. All his contributions were ascribed to either Rajiv Gandhi or Manmohan Singh.
When he died, there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it atop a platform for public darshan. No flowers were provided by the Congress government. There was no shamiana and there were no carpets. There was no one to control the mourning crowds. The Congress president appeared for a couple of minutes and vanished. To top that, the former Prime Minister’s mortal remains were not even allowed in the AICC office in the capital, New Delhi.
Congress party tried to vanish the public memory of Rao, who single handedly dismantled the Nehruvian license-quota-permit Raj. The country faced a balance of payments crisis in late 1980s, and the PV Narsimha Rao government, elected in mid-1991, wanted to carry out economic reforms for which it handpicked Manmohan Singh for the post of Finance Minister, after veteran economist I G Patel refused to take up the post.
In the biography of Rao, Sitapati highlights that it was Rao who forced Manmohan to take reformist measures, whenever he thought of retreat due opposition pressure or inner party fissures. Had it not been Rao, Manmohan Singh would had never been able to carry out economic reforms, which became evident during his Prime Ministerial tenure, when Singh was not able to take a single path breaking decision, despite having the most powerful chair of the country.
Had it not been Rao, Manmohan Singh would have remained an unknown bureaucrat and academic, just like I G Patel, whose chair he got. By blaming Rao for the anti-Sikh riots, just to whitewash the prime culprit, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh has not just betrayed the person who was responsible for his northwards career graph, but also damaged his credibility. The countrymen used to have a very sane opinion about Manmohan Singh, but, after the remark on Rao, his credibility would never be the same.
A nationalist to the core, Rao was fluent in 17 languages, was well versed with subjects related to economics, law, history, politics and arts. In political circles, Rao was fondly addressed as the scholar amongst the politicians.
PV Narasimha Rao changed the name of the Congress Party from Indian National Congress (Indira) to Bhartiya Rashtriya Congress (Indian National Congress) and rejected the candidature of Sonia Gandhi as the Congress President with hard-hitting words as recorded in late INC leader Arjun Singh’s biography- “Suddenly, he burst out in anger and virtually yelled out words to the effect that whether it was essential that the Congress Party should be treated like a train where the compartments have to be attached to an engine belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family or were there other alternatives? I was dumbfounded by Rao’s outburst but kept quiet.”
Since being elected as the President of Congress party in late 1990s, Sonia Gandhi had been on a revenge spree against Rao. The credit for economic reform was ‘transferred’ to Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, and the blame for the failures of Congress party was out on Rao. Now, the 87 years old former Prime Minister of India, who allowed massive corruption under his watch, has decided to ally with Sonia, and spew venom against the man who took him to chair of Finance Minister.