NEW DELHI, 24 December 2004 — Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who initiated India’s bold economic reforms in the 1990s, died here yesterday two weeks after suffering from a heart attack. He was 83.

After an emergency Cabinet meeting, the government announced seven days’ official mourning and a state funeral was being arranged. Two minutes’ silence was observed in the Parliament which then adjourned.

Rao, India’s ninth prime minister whose free-market reforms in 1991 launched India’s shift from a bankrupt nation hobbled by socialist policies into a regional economic power, was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Dec. 9 after complaining of breathlessness. Rao suffered a cardiac arrest and multiple organ failure yesterday morning. The end came at 2.10 p.m. with his five daughters and two sons by his side.

Rao’s funeral will take place tomorrow in the southern city of Hyderabad, capital of his home state of Andhra Pradesh, Press Trust of India quoted family sources as saying.

Tributes and condolences poured in from across the country, led by President Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a message to Rao’s son P.V. Ranga Rao, Kalam said: “Narasimha Rao was a multi-faceted personality, a statesman and a leader who contributed to the nation in various capacities during his long and distinguished political career.

“He will always be remembered for initiating economic reforms in the country during his tenure as prime minister of the country.”

Manmohan Singh, once Rao’s finance minister and his chief architect of the economic reforms, was among the first to express his grief. “It’s a personal loss to me,” Singh said. “Whatever I could do as finance minister was because of his unstinting support. He will be remembered as the father of economic reforms.”

In Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz expressed sorrow over Rao’s death.

“Mr. Rao will be remembered for his endeavors towards improvement of relations between Pakistan and India,” Islamabad’s foreign ministry said.

“He was a distinguished writer and the people of India will miss them for his rich legacy,” it said.

Rao’s body was brought to his official residence — 9, Motilal Nehru Marg — in the heart of New Delhi’s VIP sector. The quiet bungalow, where the scholar and linguist spent his time reading, writing and meeting visitors, suddenly sprang to life with politicians of all hues arriving to pay their last respects to the man who will be remembered as the one who steered India out of a grave economic crisis in the early 1990s.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi was among senior figures who paid their last respects at the house. “We shall miss his wise counsel,” Gandhi said. “His contributions were immense and will be remembered for generations to come.”

Former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee, V.P. Singh, I.K. Gujral and Chandra Shekhar expressed sadness at his demise and visited his residence.

“It is the end of an era. He was given the epithet of Chanakya (a political theoretician and economist of ancient India),” said Vajpayee, who succeeded Rao as prime minister in 1996.

Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, who had a long association with Rao since both were from Andhra Pradesh, said he “belonged to his own league. He left an indelible imprint on Indian politics and Indian economic policy.”

Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, another Congress party veteran who also served as a minister under Rao, praised Rao for steering India through the political and economic crisis after Gandhi’s death.

“Narasimha Rao took the reins of the office of prime minister at a time of severe national crisis, both political and economic, and guided India’s relations with the world at a time of extraordinary turbulence and change internationally,” he said.

Indian industry said the country had attained its strong economic standing because of the reform measures taken under Rao. “It is through the initiatives of Narasimha Rao that India has attained its current role on the global stage,” said Sunil Kant Munjal, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Rao was brought in from retirement to head the Congress following Rajiv Gandhi’s 1991 assassination, and was swept into the prime minister’s office on a sympathy wave for the bereaved party. Rao was chosen because he didn’t belong to any of the fiercely rival Congress camps, and he often appeared lost in India’s freewheeling politics. But he cemented his role in the country’s modern history with 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.

In a television interview earlier this year, Rao said he had no choice but to launch 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 said he stood “like a rock” behind Singh. When politicians attacked Singh, “I said ‘attack me. Don’t attack him, he’s not a politician. Let him do his job’.”

But the dour, often-indecisive politician saw power slip away after five years in office. Rao’s career was overshadowed by accusations that he did little to curb the savage religious violence that tore through India during his 1991-96 term, and by corruption charges leveled against him late in life.

In 2001, Rao was sentenced to three years in prison for buying lawmakers’ support to save his government during a 1993 no-confidence motion. The conviction was overturned the following year. Rao never served any time in prison, but became the first prime minister to be tried on criminal charges once out of office.

One of the toughest challenges for Rao — and for India’s secular society — came on Dec. 6, 1992 when Hindu extremists tore down the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, setting off deadly religious riots that killed more than 2,000 people and widened the country’s religious divide. Rao was accused of not doing enough to curb the escalating tension.

The riots 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.

Rao remained a powerful party insider, until he became embroiled in scandals including the vote-buying accusation that was never proved. He also was acquitted of charges that he conspired to forge bank documents to malign a political rival, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh.

Singh was gracious in his tributes to Rao yesterday. “His most significant contribution was the initiation of the economic changes,” Singh said.

A third corruption case involved Rao allegedly asking for a $100,000 bribe from a pickle tycoon for a pulp manufacturing contract. Rao won that case also.

Born into an upper-caste farming family on June 28, 1921 in Andhra Pradesh, Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao was married at age 10, a common practice among high caste Hindus at the time.

He launched his political career when he was in law school, joining protests against British colonialists.

At 36, Rao won a seat in the Andhra Pradesh state assembly, and became a member of India’s Parliament in 1977. 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.

— With input from agencies