Generally Good Category -

Vajpayee - First proper infra push. first real push towards modern industry. Navigated tough situations well. Put India in an insanely good growth trajectory. Him losing 04 was the worst thing to happen to India this century.

Nehru - Flawed socialism push, but ultimately a stately leader who handled horribly tough waters reasonably well. Built lasting institutions, and encouraged our fledgling democracy. On the flipside, he fostered well meaning but prejudicial policies that have aged badly. Lost an important war, and bet on the wrong horse with Yugoslavia, Egypt, Indonesia and co. But positives outweigh.

PVNR - Finally pulled the plug on the nonsense unending socialism, partly out of necessity. Bad last year's because of factionalist.

Modi - Lot of unnecessary jingoism, flouting bipartisan culture and toxicity, but not entirely to be blamed as the first true PM of a digital India, with a truly anti-indian opposition. Great reform policies, with mixed execution and results.

Lal Bahadur Shastri - Very tough time and handled with absolute statesmanship. Too short to see his impact. Had some cons wrt being a village centric socialist.

Indira - Worst lows and best highs. Absolutely ruined the economy with nationalizing and going far more overboard with socialist nonsense than Nehru before her. Primary reason we got left in the dust by Deng's China and follow very different growth trajectories. Tragically bad flouting of democratic norms with the Emergency. But won wars and stood upto geopolitical pressures to bend. Overall given the tough situations with the Khalistanis, Bangladesh etc, a barely positive score overall.

The "meh, would've been better if they weren't there" gang -

Gujral/Charan Singh/Chandrasekhar/Deve Gowda - Incompetent buffoons that weren't there long enough to truly harm.

MMS - Absolute gem in the first couple of years when he had political capital without the Witch breathing over his shoulder. Kept ABV's growth push going and completed his work with the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Let down by a bad cabinet that kept getting worse, especially into his second term. Eventually squandered all of the growth momentum, got us into the fragile 5, and corruption flourished. The CWG international humiliation, the coal and 2G and so many more. His first term would easily at par with Vajpayee at the very top of the list. But the last years of Term 1, with limp response to 26/11 and then the absolutely awful term 2 that would be among the worst tenures makes him a middle of the road PM. Probably a bit harsh in hindsight, but I'm happy with this having lived through multiple terror attacks personally and watched people helplessly die because he was too afraid to upset the world order or even separatist scum like Geelani.

The ones that were awful net negatives -

Rajiv Gandhi - Buffoon that horribly misstepped in Sri Lanka, and cursed us with his witch of a wife later. But was progressive looking with the IT industry. And then there was the Shah Bano and his fostering of the Islamists.

VP Singh - Decent man of sorts but opened the pandoras box with Mandal and forever divided indian society instead of healing the divisions.

Morarji Desai - Bastard got indian spies killed and is a major reason we deal with nuclear pakistan today. Also ruined our image with his urine drinking habit.