Alexander suggested G.V. Ramakrishna, a bureaucrat who had worked in finance before, and was at the time the chief regulator of India’s capital markets. But Narasimha Rao, whose failure as Andhra chief minister had taught him to be conscious of caste combinations, rejected the name, saying, ‘The principal secretary and prime minister should not both be south Indian Brahmins . . . that would send out the wrong message.’26
