Question to be asked are
Were we left with any more options?
Was the political leadership of that era able to find one amongst them to head the finance ministry and then take up the reforms which were being forced down our throat?
Would yashwant sinha, had the government not fallen, done something on similar lines?
India had practically no options left, the international lending community (countries, organizations alike) was all over us breathing down our neck offering no room to evade from impending reforms in an era where we were finding ourselves getting increasingly isolated by the hour, with this being the only viable and sustainable option, the other option but suicidal was defaulting on payments but that would have had severe immediate impact with all round trouble, which could at worst have meant meeting a fate similar to that of Zimbabwe, which was on display in not so distant past and long term repercussions with indias fiscal image taking a beating. Let us also not forget three dramatic transformations that were happening around the world and within during this timeline. Soviet union, back then our strongest international supporter/ally, up till now was helping us bail out of such similar crises which would erupt from time to time but with them collapsing there was absolutely no hope of any aid coming from them. Russia, the biggest surviving nation was finding it hard to feed its populace, quite literally finding it difficult to sustain their own economy, so there was absolutely no chance they could have thought beyond, so we were strangulated on that front, some might say a blessing in disguise, quite true, I may add. The other transformation was happening closer to home, and that was the dramatic rise of china, here was a challenge being thrown up front to india, where not in so much of a distant past indias gdp was larger than chinas but now the situation had reversed, they had grown way too big in a quick succession and was becoming a worrying sign, something had to be done to buck the trend and make us take a similar rapid growth path. The most dangerous scenario was evolving within with active support to insurgency from outside in Punjab, Kashmir, and NE and back then every effort was being made by the US/UK led front to dismember india and force india to give up Kashmir and similar pressure being faced on Punjab front as well, and the very fragile situation that we were faced with, we had to have a sustainable solution and not suicidal, though the US/UK led effort to dismember india was to continue well into fag end of 90s.
Interestingly this was not indias first shot at economic liberalization in that phase, rajiv gandhi way back in 1984 was about to unleash indias economic reforms but he wanted to take one step at a time, with a little reforms here and little there, more like a touch up and make follow ups later after seeing the impact of the initial steps taken but he left it a little too late for the bigger strides to be taken and by the time those bigger strides were to be taken bofors corruption scandal was to hit the scene and catch the imagination of the aam admi big time, and all the big talk of rajiv would evaporate with time, and it had become too risky to even talk of economic reforms where the opposition sloganeering was swadeshi, imagine those were the days bjp and left used to find a common ground on more issues than not.
Coming to the second question. Politicians of that era didnt have names that oozed confidence in the international community especially with the lending community and pvn was left with no choice but forced to look outside for running the economic affairs. Was it a political suicide for him as some sections have been trying to make it sound off late? Well, he was new to the job, had just formed the government of the day, so there was no reason to worry otherwise, no one was going to pull the plug, 10days into the job, no one pulls the support when no other options, especially when we have a tradition of electing politicians who know very well which side the bread is buttered for them, so it was no political suicide for pvn, and even if the process would have faltered, he had gained enough clout within the ruling coalition to make sure he lasted the term. Let us not forget how Chandra swami was propped up and used to cuts political deals back in those days. His real tough call was to start the diplomatic relations with Israel, and he needs to be given all the credit for this, but not for the ushering in of economic reforms. Within congress the reforms were to be sold as a continuation of a dream that rajiv wanted to live, outside, the opposition was up in arms and it would be normal to see them shouting india being sold to goras yet again, something bjp kept shouting till nda government was formed, and a major tragedy of sorts was averted when murli manohar joshi (the rss nominee for FM position) was not allowed to become the finance minister of nda, otherwise he was all in a mood to reverse a lot of reforms, he of course was to be made the HRD minster back then, thank Vajpayee for this.
This is a tricky question, would yashwant sinha have done something similar? We would have known that only if the Chandra shekhar government had survived, my strong sense is, yes, some sort of reforms were inevitable but would they have walked all the way through this tight situation as MMS did, highly unlikely as they didnt have the political mandate and nor the political will to face the political fallout because the sword of elections happening at any given moment was always hanging as rajiv would keep threatening of the pull out, and back then the talk of economic reforms was a taboo, those were the days and following 90s, other than when pvn was the PM that the PMs were to get the notorious name of aya ram, gaya ram, imagine the plight.
Let us not get into personality worship, make ordinary people larger than life, make a cult following for the said person because when these heroes fall from that image, it gets very disheartening, disappointing. MMS was good as a FM, has he been a good PM leaves a lot to questioning.
As far as congress is concerned, they have a tradition where all the good traces to gandhis, all the bad that happens and as bjp recently said, it is either ill advice to the 2Gs by the advisors or bad people who took the 2Gs for a ride. With MMS long gone in another few years, will MMS get the same fame of turning around indias economy, well time will tell, but dont be surprised if rajiv would be pushed as the real game changer and not MMS.
Sorry for the long commentary but it was important to explore and bring in the important happenings that transformed india for which no one person or event can be solely credited, nor just the two months.
