Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, nationalist[1], statesman, and politician from the Congress Party who served as the prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996.

[16] Later, he was adopted by Pamulaparthi Ranga Rao and Rukminamma and brought to Vangara, a village in Bheemadevarpalle mandal of present-day Hanamkonda district in Telangana when he was three years old.

[15][14][17] Popularly known as P. V., he completed part of his primary education in Katkuru village of Bheemdevarapalli mandal in Hanamkonda district by staying in his relative Gabbeta Radhakishan Rao's house and studying for his bachelor's degree in the Arts college at the Osmania University.

[8] Patel was an official who helped prepare 14 budgets, an ex-governor of the Reserve Bank of India and had headed The London School of Economics.

[46] He increased military spending, and set the Indian Army on course to fight the emerging threat of terrorism and insurgencies, as well as Pakistan and China's nuclear potentials.

Similarly, he dealt with the kidnapping of some foreign tourists by a terrorist group called Al Faran in Kashmir valley in 1995 effectively.

[59] According to Rejaul Karim Laskar, a scholar of India's foreign policy and ideologue of Rao's Congress Party, Rao initiated the Look East policy with three objectives in mind, namely, to renew political contacts with the ASEAN-member nation; to increase economic interaction with South East Asia in trade, investment, science and technology, tourism, etc.

[60] He decided to maintain a distance from the Dalai Lama in order to avoid aggravating Beijing's suspicions and concerns, and made successful overtures to Tehran.

Three years later, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee fulfilled his party's campaign promise by ordering five nuclear tests below the shimmering sands of Rajasthan.

Rao's government introduced the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA),[70] India's first anti-terrorism legislation, and directed the Indian Army to eliminate the infiltrators from Pakistan.

Members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) demolished the Babri Mosque (which was constructed by Mir Baqi, a general of India's first Mughal Emperor, Babur[72]) in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992.

[74][75] The destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India.

Hindus and Muslims were involved in massive rioting across the country and almost every major city, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bhopal, struggled to control the unrest.

It pointed out that Rao was heading a minority government and accepted the centre's argument that central forces could not be deployed by the Union, nor could President's Rule be imposed "on the basis of rumours or media reports".

The commission also stated that the Governor's assessment of the situation was either badly flawed or overly optimistic and was thus a major impediment for the central government.

The Commission further said, "... knowing fully well that its facetious undertakings before the Supreme Court had bought it sufficient breathing space, it (state government) proceeded with the planning for the destruction of the disputed structure.

[80] Rao was applauded by many for using modern technology and resources to organise major relief operations to assuage the stricken people, and for schemes of economic reconstruction.

In the early 1990s, one of the earliest accusations came in the form of stockbroker Harshad Mehta, who through his lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, revealed that he had paid a sum of one crore rupees to the then prime minister Rao for help in closing his cases.

It was alleged that Rao, through a representative, offered millions of rupees to members of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and possibly a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal, to vote for him during the confidence motion.

In 2000, after years of legal proceedings, a special court convicted Rao and his colleague, Buta Singh (who is alleged to have escorted the MPs to the Prime Minister).

[87] Lakhubhai Pathak, an Indian businessman living in England, alleged that Chandraswami and K. N. Aggarwal alias Mamaji, along with Rao, cheated him out of $100,000.

The amount was given for an express promise for allowing supplies of paper pulp in India, and Pathak alleged that he spent an additional $30,000 entertaining Chandraswami and his secretary.

[88] In spite of significant achievements in a difficult situation, in the 1996 general elections the Indian electorate voted out Rao's Congress Party.

[94] A memorial was built for P. V. Narasimha Rao located adjacent to Sanjeevaiah Park, developed in 2005 on 1.2 hectares (2.9 acres) of land known as Gyan Bhumi.

Their eldest son, P. V. Ranga Rao, was the education minister in Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy's cabinet and an MLA from Hanamakonda Assembly Constituency, in Warangal District for two terms.

On the occasion of 25 years of economic liberalisation in India, there have been several books published by authors, journalists and civil servants evaluating Rao's contributions.

In addition to nine Indian languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu), he spoke Arabic, English, French, German, Persian and Spanish.

The state government also decided to set up a memorial and five bronze statues at various places, including Hyderabad, Warangal, Karimnagar, Vangara and Delhi.

[114] In the year 2019, an independent biographical documentary film named P V: Change with Continuity (2019) directed and produced by Sravani Kotha and Srikar Reddy Gopaladinne released on the streaming platform Vimeo.

[115][116][117] The documentary features rare archival footage and interviews of several distinguished people closely related to Rao's life and work.