Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, whose free-market reforms in 1991 launched India’s shift from a bankrupt nation hobbled by socialist policies into a world economic power, died Thursday in New Delhi of cardiac arrest. He was 83.

A dour, often-indecisive politician who saw power slip away after five years in office, Rao saw his accomplishments overshadowed by accusations that he did little to curb the savage religious violence that tore through India during his 1991-96 term, and by corruption charges leveled against him late in life.

In 2001, Rao was sentenced to prison for buying lawmakers’ support to save his government from falling during a 1993 no-confidence motion. The conviction was overturned the following year. Rao never served any time in prison, but became the first prime minister to be tried on criminal charges.

Rao, known for a pout that was a cartoonist’s delight, was a lifelong loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, which produced India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi, both of whom became prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi’s wife, Sonia, is now the head of the governing Congress Party.

Rao was brought in from retirement to head the Congress following Rajiv Gandhi’s 1991 assassination, and was swept into the prime minister’s office on a wave of sympathy for the bereaved party.

Rao was chosen because he didn’t belong to any of the fiercely rival Congress camps, and he often appeared lost in India’s freewheeling politics. But he cemented his role in the country’s modern history with a series of economic reforms crafted by Manmohan Singh, a Cambridge-educated economist.

The two men wrought a financial revolution in a nation where Soviet-style economic policies had long held sway: slashing subsidies, launching the partial privatization of state-run companies, and inviting in foreign investors.

They also dismantled what was known as the “license raj,” the vast, complex system of regulations that forced businesses to get government approval for nearly any decision – often at the cost of enormous bribes.

One of the toughest challenges for Rao – and for India’s secular society – came in a battle between India’s majority Hindus and its minority Muslims over a 16th-century mosque. Hindus said the mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya was built on the desecrated ruins of an important Hindu temple.

The nationalists’ campaign climaxed on Dec. 6, 1992, when mobs tore down the mosque, setting off deadly religious riots that killed more than 2,000 people and widened the country’s religious divide. Rao was accused of not doing enough to curb the escalating tension.

The riots weakened Congress beyond repair. In 1996 – after ruling India for all but four of the previous 49 years since independence – Congress fell from power.

Mr.Singh was gracious in his tributes to Rao on Thursday.

“His most significant contribution was the initiation of the economic changes,” Mr. Singh said.

In his private time, Rao wrote a political novel, watched tennis on television, and studied languages, learning eight of them – although he said he quickly lost use of most of them.

“Languages are like something that leaves you the moment you don’t take care of it,” he said in the NDTV interview. “Like a very demanding wife.”

Born into an upper-caste farming family on June 28,1921, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Rao was married at age 10, a common practice at the time.

At 36, Rao won a seat in the Andhra Pradesh state assembly, and became a member of India’s Parliament in 1977. He held a number of top posts from 1980 to 1989, including foreign minister and defense minister.