![]() What would have happened if Rajiv Gandhi had lived on? The idealistic reformer of 1985 had malformed, by 1987, into a cynical politician. They had been unable to make use of these opportunities.įor more proof that India’s transformation was not ordained, consider the alternatives for premiership. Even the specific ideas for foreign policy and economic reforms had been put down on paper some years prior to 1991.įour prime ministers before Narasimha Rao had been presented with the right ‘moment’-in terms of favourable external winds, well-sketched internal ideas, and opportunistic crises-to renovate India. Two Nehru-Gandhis had been killed in this decade, and violence in Punjab and Assam had already peaked. By the early 1980s, policymakers could objectively measure that welfare schemes were not reaching the poor, and India’s nuclear programme had progressed steadily. Foreign ministry mandarins knew that the Soviet Union was teetering since at least 1985, and India’s détente with the United States had first begun a decade prior to Rao becoming PM. ![]() An IMF loan had been negotiated in 1981-82 but that had not jolted prime minister Indira Gandhi into liberalizing the economy. ![]()
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