PAPER DREAMS

Today Narendra Modi, India’s PM elect is all set to be appointed India’s 15^th Prime Minister (15th if you combine the two terms of Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh). That makes this the perfect time to take a look at all those leaders who preceded him. What they did after they became Prime Ministers has been recorded many times over in the nation’s history books. What I found interesting was their background before they became the supreme leader of India. Sure they were all members of their respective political parties, but you will note that some were ‘born into’ the top echelons of the party and therefore ‘inherited’ the top positions, while others soldiered on as foot soldiers before reaching the top position.

(He was the acting Prime Minister after the deaths of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri)

(Incidentally, Desai resigned as deputy collector of Godhra in May 1930 after being found guilty of going soft on Hindus during the riots of 1927-28 there! You draw the parallels… however I don’t see Mr Modi having to resign as he has a majority.)

(Not much information available about his beginnings except that he was born in the Rajput Zamindar family ruling the Kingdom of Manda. If you have some information about his background other than his zamindar beginnings please drop me a note. I will update this information.)

(Random fact – PV could speak in Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Oriya, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German and Persian!)

(Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister for two consecutive terms.)

(He is the first Indian PM born after India gained independence. On a lighter note… in a nation of chai drinkers his beginnings counts for something. )

If you have any other interesting facts to add about these stalwarts please do drop me a note and I will add the information to the post.