What Happened Was Inevitable, but Actually It Wasn't

If leaders are to be judged by their actions, PV Narasimha Rao was our tallest leader. Vinay Sitapati joins Amit Varma in episode 283 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss how Rao showed  conviction and political skill in going against the tides of the day to enable the 1991 reforms, which brought hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty Also check out: 1. Half-Lion: How PV Narasimha Rao Transformed India -- Vinay Sitapati. 2. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi -- Vinay Sitapati. 3. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 4. The Insider -- PV Narasimha Rao. 5. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms -- Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah). 6. Gandhi's Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India -- Dhirendra Jha. 7. Ascetic Games and Ayodhya: A Dark Night. 8. How the BJP wins: Inside India’s Greatest Election Machine -- Prashant Jha. 9. The BJP’s Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 10. India’s Problem is Poverty, Not Inequality — Amit Varma. 11. On Inequality — Harry Frankfurt. 12. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 14. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 15. The Life and Times of Vir Sanghvi -- Episode 236 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. The Clash of Civilizations? (the article) -- Samuel Huntington. 17. The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order -- Samuel Huntington. 18. Cut the Clutter with Shekhar Gupta. 19. Headley And I -- S Hussain Zaidi and Rahul Bhatt. 20. Wanting -- Luke Burgis. 21. Abhijit Bhaduri Breaks the Algorithm -- Episode 279 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. René Girard on Amazon and Wikipedia. 23. Amit Varma's tweet on winning the Asian Championships of Match Poker. 24. The Blue Bedspread -- Raj Kamal Jha. 25. The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda's Road to 9/11 -- Lawrence Wright. 26. Modi’s Domination – What We Often Overlook — Keshava Guha. 27. India’s Lost Decade -- Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 28. The Alchemy of Finance -- George Soros. 29. Sturgeon's Law and Survivorship Bias. 30. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Libertarian -- Amit Varma. 31. Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions -- Upinder Singh. 32. Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History -- Romila Thapar. 33. Romila Thapar, DD Kosambi and Irfan Habib. 34. A Culture of Discrimination Or A Culture Of Emancipation? -- Aravindan Neelakandan on Romila Thapar. 35. The Wire -- David Simon etc. 36. Dekalog — Krzysztof Kieślowski. 37. The Fissures of Modern Hinduism -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta delivers the DD Kosambi Memorial Lecture. 38. Upinder Singh, Nayanjot Lahiri and Iravatham Mahadevan on Amazon. 39. The Power Broker -- Robert A Caro. 40. Robert A Caro on Amazon. 41. The World Is What It Is -- Patrick French. 42. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China -- Ezra Vogel. 43. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister — Amit Varma. 44. Sex tape: Andhra Governor N D Tiwari resigns. 45. Bad liver and a broken heart -- Sunil Murthy on Leela Naidu. 46. The Law of Truly Large Numbers. 47. Unlikely is Inevitable -- Amit Varma. 48. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln -- Doris Kearns Goodwin. 49. To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story -- Jairam Ramesh. 50. Brideshead Revisited -- Evelyn Waugh. 51. Brideshead Revisited, the TV series. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! The illustration for this episode is by Nishant Jain aka Sneaky Artist. Check out his work on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.