Born at the very bottom of India’s social pyramid, he rose on to occupy the highest office in the country with no assets other than hard work, integrity and humility. ‘A working President’, as he described himself, he never allowed dogma to overwhelm his beliefs and convictions.
President Narayanan was in office from 1997 to 2002, a time when globalization, as we are experiencing it in the current times, was taking root. At the banquet he hosted for the visiting US President Bill Clinton in New Delhi in March 2000, President Narayanan remarked: “Mr.