New Delhi: A new book offers a detailed account of the rise and brief but eventful tenure of the late Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who was the Prime Minister of India from December 1989 to November 1990.
Published by HarperCollins India, ‘The Disruptor: How Vishwanath Pratap Singh Shook India’ by senior journalist Debashish Mukerji will be released on 8 December on ‘Softcover’, ThePrint’s online venue to release select non-fiction books.
Divided into eight parts, ‘The Disruptor’ commemorates V.P. Singh’s 90th birth anniversary by tracing every major step of the former PM’s life and political career, as Mukerji argues why the “posthumous neglect” of V.P. Singh’s impact on Indian politics is a “disgrace”.
“[P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh] are rightly credited with ushering in India’s economic liberalization by dismantling the License Raj….but they had a predecessor, who sought to move the economy in the same direction, yet is rarely acknowledged — V.P. Singh,” Mukerji writes.
As such, Mukerji also provides a brief introductory explanation behind the absence of a well-documented legacy or memorabilia dedicated to V.P. Singh, compared to his successors.
“[V.P. Singh’s] was a political career that riled both poles of Indian politics, the Congress and the BJP, and neither has the slightest interest in commemorating his memory,” Mukerji writes.
In his attempt to “redress the imbalance” of public memory around V.P. Singh, Mukerji thus puts together detailed accounts of the biggest contributions of Singh’s tenure on Indian politics, such as the adoption of the Mandal Commission report and attempts to curb corrupt practices in the private sector.
A journalist with nearly four decades of experience, Mukerji previously worked with Hindustan Times, The Week and Business Today, and is an expert on Uttar Pradesh and national-level politics.
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