He writes that four 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. Sitapati attacks with vigour the much-accepted notion that it was the circumstances that forced Rao’s hands to initiate liberalization of the economy. He writes that Rao’s personality (who has been dubbed as Procrastinate, Vacillate Rao by his detractors) was central to the transformation of India, a shift caused not by historical forces, but by the leadership of one man. At a time when the nation is marking the 25th year of economic liberalization, Sitapati’s book deserves close reading. One clear argument that Harvard-schooled Sitapati presents is that had Rao not become prime minister, India would have been a different country.

Rao is presented as a corpse waiting to be buried, then skilfully Sitapati resurrects him. Sitapati even boldly asserts that Rao was a reformer as consequential as Deng Xiaoping to China. Political scientist Vinay Sitapati, who considers Rao the best Prime Minister India has had since Jawaharlal Nehru, however, reclaims the former Congress leader’s rightful place in his own party as well as in the nation’s history in a brilliantly written biography, Half Lion: How P V Narasimha Rao Transformed India (Published by Penguin | Viking, Pages 391, Price Rs 699). But today BJP is appropriating his legacy - maybe as a thanksgiving for letting the Babri Masjid brought down under his watch. Not only that the Congress party disowned its loyal servant (he never once deserted the Nehru-Gandhi parivar like A K Antony, Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and Sharad Pawar). P V Narasimha Rao despite ruling India from 1991 till 1996 did not get his ghat in history in December 2004.

One of the benefits of being India’s prime minister is when the time comes, you will get a burial place in Delhi.

Vinay sitapati half lion