Jayaprakash Narayan
Man Behind a Movement

JP spent the first 25 years of independence as the patron saint of lost causes: the Praja Socialist Party, the Sarvodaya movement, even self-determination for Kashmir. His most enduring contribution to the life of the Republic was the movement he led to unseat Mrs Gandhi, which provoked the Emergency. As the eminence grise of the Janata Party, the first non-Congress party to run the central government, he can take credit for catalysing the political forces that set in train the Congress’s political decline.

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Atal Behari Vajpayee
The Hindu Poet-king

A member of Parliament for nearly 50 years, Vajpayee’s claim to this list is that he is the only non-Congress prime minister to have served a full term in office. Vajpayee portrayed the possibility that the nakedly anti-minority Bharatiya Janata Party could morph into a right-wing, mildly majoritarian party on the lines of the Christian Democratic parties of Western Europe. This promise was belied by his equivocation in the face of the pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat under chief minister Narendra Modi.

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N.T. Rama Rao
Telugu Talisman

On screen he seduced the Telugu world as Rama and Krishna and was soon regarded as a deity himself. Then he harnessed his star power to whip up Telugu pride and create a powerful political machine that would make regional aspirations and interests a decisive force in national politics.

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Manmohan Singh
The Post-Gandhian

He is more than just the architect of India’s economic reforms. In an era of corruption, his personal life is above reproach. In a time of intellectual bankruptcy, he tries hard to make ideas fashionable. In a period of bitterly polarised positions, he stands for consensus.

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C.N. Annadurai
Tamil Titan

If Periyar launched the Dravidian movement, Annadurai gave it political form by founding the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1949. He fought for upliftment of non-Brahmins, led the anti-Hindi agitation; he also gave Madras its name—Tamil Nadu. His legacy still inspires politics in the state.

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Maulana Azad
The Inclusionist

Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed, known to history as Maulana Azad, was an unswerving opponent of the idea of Pakistan. He was publicly scorned by Jinnah before independence as a Congress showboy. But he took on Vallabhbhai Patel over the security of Muslims in a divided India. At an age when most people retire, Maulana Azad shouldered the enormous onus of becoming not just India’s first education minister, but the most visible symbol of the pluralist claims of the new republic.

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C. Rajagopalachari
Leader of the Opposition

Erudite and prescient, he shredded the philosophy of socialism during its noontide, anticipating the cesspool of corruption which Nehru’s economic policies would lead to.