New Delhi -- Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, whose free-market economic reforms in 1991 launched India's shift from a bankrupt nation hobbled by socialist policies into a regional economic power, has died. He was 83.
Rao died of cardiac arrest at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital where he was admitted on Dec. 9 after complaining of breathlessness, said Chetan Sharma, his aide.
"It's a personal loss to me," said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was once Rao's finance minister and his right-hand man in the reforms campaign. "He will be remembered as the father of economic reforms."
A dour, often-indecisive politician, Rao's career was overshadowed by accusations that he did little to curb savage the religious violence that tore through India during his 1991-96 term, and by corruption charges leveled against him late in life.
Rao also was the first prime minister to be tried on criminal charges while out of office. He was, however, cleared of all charges for which he faced trials.
In 2001, Rao was sentenced to three years in prison for buying lawmakers' support to save his government from falling during a 1993 no-confidence motion. The conviction was overturned the following year. Rao never served any time in prison.
Rao, was a lifelong loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, which produced India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi, both of whom became prime minister. Gandhi's wife Sonia is now the head of the governing Congress Party.
Rao was brought in from retirement to head the Congress following the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and was swept into the prime minister's office on a sympathy wave for the bereaved party.
He cemented his role in the country's modern history by initiating a series of economic reforms crafted by Singh, a Cambridge-educated economist.
The two men wrought a financial revolution in a nation where Soviet-style economic policies had long held sway: slashing subsidies, launching the partial privatization of state-run companies and inviting in foreign investors.
They also dismantled what was known as the "license raj," the vast, complex system of regulations that forced businesses to get government approval for nearly any decision -- often at the cost of enormous bribes.
In a 2004 interview with NDTV television, Rao said he had no choice but to launch the reforms.
"There was nothing more to do. You had no money, you were going to become a defaulter within two weeks," he said. "Once you become a defaulter your entire economy, your honor, your place in the comity of nations, everything goes haywire."
Rao's tenure was marred by the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992 in the northern town of Ayodhya by mobs of Hindu nationalists instigated by the opposition. The mosque destruction set off nationwide Hindu-Muslim riots that left more than 2,000 people dead. Many blamed Rao's inaction in controlling the mosque raids for the bloodshed.
The mosque tragedy and a Hindu nationalist campaign weakened Congress beyond repair. In 1996 -- after ruling India for all but four of the previous 49 years since independence -- Congress fell from power.
"I am one of the most content persons you can imagine. It's time for younger people to take over," he said after leaving office.
He was also acquitted in a second case in which he was accused of conspiring to forge bank documents to malign the reputation of a political rival, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh.
He was born into an upper-caste Brahmin farming family on June 28, 1921 in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, and launched his political career when he was still in law school, joining protests against British colonialists.
At 36, Rao won a seat in the Andhra Pradesh state assembly, and entered national politics in 1977 as a member of India's Parliament. He held a number of top posts from 1980 to 1989, including foreign minister and defense minister.
Rao is survived by three sons and five daughters.
