P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure as prime minister came at a tumultuous time in India's history. Political chaos after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab and economic woes all stared Narasimha Rao in the face when he took office as prime minister in 1991.
It is, thus, not surprising that Narasimha Rao's ringside view of Indian politics as a whole would make headlines. And that is just what happened in 1998 when Narasimha Rao's novel, The Insider, was published. The Insider comes under the literary category of Roman à clef, or novels about real-life events with fictionalisation. The cover for the first version of the book noted "It tells the explosive truth about Indian politics."
The book was, fittingly, released by another scholar-turned prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was in office at the time.
In a TV interview with Karan Thapar after publication of The Insider, Narasimha Rao was asked why he opted for this form of a novel. Narasimha Rao argued "the kind of material I was dealing with required the advantages of all three methods [novel, autobiography and study]". Narasimha Rao had told mediapersons that the book had "evolved over 20 years".
The Insider featured real-life characters such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and numerous others who bear resemblances to real politicians. The Insider told the story of Anand, an idealist politician who became chief minister of a fictional state and who was called up to be prime minister after he retired from politics. This was the same career path Narasimha Rao took!
In a review of The Insider in THE WEEK issue dated May 17, 1998, Sachidananda Murthy, resident editor of Malayala Manorama, noted, "The novel is like one of the thousands of speeches P.V. Narasimha Rao delivered during his long career in state and national politics—too long, often tedious and filled with all the minor details, logical to the extreme, packed with humour and analysis. The fictional biography lacks the candour of an autobiography and the dramatic tautness of a thriller, but yet it gives an insight into what were the earlier influences and the experiences of one of the most enigmatic Indian politicians."
Murthy wrote that like Narasimha Rao, the protagonist of The Insider is prone to procrastination. "Decisions are so painful that battles rage in his mind for days and nights. Every point of view on even small matters is presented in Anand's mind before he takes a decision. There are many issues which remain in limbo," Murthy noted.
In The Insider, Narasimha Rao devoted considerable attention to the leadership and ideology of three prime ministers: Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.
While Narasimha Rao presented Anand as an admirer of Nehru in The Insider, his lack of enthusiasm for the dynastic political culture of the Congress is also evident. In The Insider, Narasimha Rao writes the phenomenon of loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family had "no recognisable origin", but notes it became a “palpable truth, particularly in the northern states”.
In addition to its views on the Nehru-Gandhi family, The Insider also courted controversy for giving details of an affair the protagonist had with a legislator.
At the time The Insider was published, Narasimha Rao expressed his intention to complete a sequel to the novel that would chronicle Anand's rise to positions of foreign minister and Union home minister, both posts he had served in. However, a sequel was never published owing to Narasimha Rao's deteriorating health and subsequent death in December 2004.