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The architect of India’s economic reforms, the first Prime Minister from a minority community, the first Prime Minister from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve two full terms, a scholar, economist, technocrat… Dr. Manmohan Singh was remembered for these and many more. Will be remembered for such deeds, achievements and qualities.
The former Prime Minister breathed his last in Delhi on Thursday 26 December. He was 92 years old. He is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur and three daughters.
The credit for India’s survival and recovery from economic collapse in the 1990s largely goes to Singh. He was the driving force behind overhauling India’s economy and moving it from a restrictive socialist economy to a more open, market-based economy. And as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, he gave the country important schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Right to Information Act and the Food Security Act, as well as strategic agreements like the nuclear deal between India and India. And the United States.
While he had his fair share of critics when he was Prime Minister between 2004 and 2014, one could hardly dispute his personal sense of decency and honesty.
humble beginnings
Singh was born in September 1932 in Gah, now in the Pakistani part of Punjab. He spent a large part of his childhood in an ordinary village, which lacked any modern comforts. Journalist and writer Rashid Kidwai writes There was no electricity or piped drinking water in Singh’s village. Nor did it have any schools, which meant that as a child, Singh had to walk miles to reach an Urdu medium school in the area. Due to lack of electricity, Singh had to study at night by the light of kerosene lamp. His family came to Amritsar during partition.
But coming from a humble home inspired Singh to pursue and excel in his studies and he became a star student while studying Economics at Panjab University. Later, he also earned higher education degrees in economics from Oxford and Cambridge. At a public event in 2018, Singh narrated how his teacher in Hoshiarpur, SB Rangnekar, had encouraged him to go abroad. Memory Historian Ramachandra Guha, who was present at the event.
Singh also became a teacher at Punjab University; Later, he taught at the Delhi School of Economics and even worked at the United Nations between 1966 and 1969.
But all these were just steps in the life of the man who would soon transform India’s economy.
Transforming India’s Economy
Singh’s involvement in shaping India’s economic policy actually predates the 1991 reforms. In the 1970s, he worked as Chief Economic Advisor and then Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.
In 1980, he worked with the Planning Commission before being appointed as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1982. Between 1985 and 1987, he was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
However, a major turning point in his career, which transformed him from an economist to a politician, was his appointment as Finance Minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government in 1991.
Apparently, Singh did not believe it when he was told that Rao wanted him to be the finance minister.
Singh told British journalist Mark Tully in 2005, “The day (Rao) was forming his Cabinet, he sent his Principal Secretary to me saying, ‘The Prime Minister would like you to become Finance Minister.’ I didn’t take it seriously.” Finally the next morning he found me, rather angrily, and demanded that I get dressed and come to Rashtrapati Bhavan for the swearing-in. This is how I started in politics.
But he could not have had a more difficult task than this.
In 1991, India’s fiscal deficit was close to 8.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and India’s foreign reserves were barely enough to pay for two weeks of imports. In return for the funds, the International Monetary Fund imposed several conditions on India related to opening up the economy.
And Singh did just that. As Finance Minister, he broke what was derogatorily called the “License Permit Raj” and reduced state control over the economy.
As part of this process, Singh cut import taxes, removed several barriers to foreign investment, and began the process of privatization of public sector companies.
In his landmark 1991 budget, Singh quoted Victor Hugo, a famous French novelist and poet: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”
In many ways it marked the beginning of India’s growth story.
an underestimated politician
Even though PV Narasimha Rao was sidelined in the Congress party after his term ended, Singh’s fortunes continued to rise.
In 1998, he became the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, ahead of several others senior to him in the Congress Party.
Apart from his involvement in parliamentary politics, one of his major political achievements in this period was how he helped seal the alliance between the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The DMK was then an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and very few expected it to ever join hands with the Congress or vice versa. But Singh’s gentle persuasion helped persuade DMK chief M Karunanidhi to switch sides. A huge increase in seats in Tamil Nadu in the 2004 general elections helped the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) achieve an unexpected victory over the National Democratic Alliance led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
This gives a glimpse of what an underrated politician Singh really was.
Welfare and development tenure
The face of the Congress-led opposition during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections was party president Sonia Gandhi. But when he ‘relinquished’ the top post after victory, he chose Singh as Prime Minister.
Apart from Gandhi’s support, the good equation with M Karunanidhi and Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet also worked in Singh’s favour.
His tenure as Prime Minister saw a series of path-breaking legislation such as MNREGA, the Right to Information Act, the Forest Rights Act, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and the Land Acquisition Act.
In his first term, Singh, along with former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, presided over a strong period of growth for the Indian economy. In 2007, India achieved its highest GDP growth rate of 9 percent and became the world’s second fastest growing economy.
This strong growth and increase in rural consumption due to pro-poor schemes helped India survive the global recession of 2008–09.
Another landmark event in Singh’s first term was the India-US nuclear deal of 2008, which, besides addressing India’s growing energy needs, helped end the world community’s nuclear discrimination against India. It was a personal battle for Singh as the existence of his government was in danger due to the withdrawal of support by the Left parties.
surrounded by controversies
Riding on economic development and welfare schemes in his first term, Singh led the UPA to victory in the 2009 general elections, defeating the LK Advani-led NDA and the third front of the Left and Bahujan Samaj Party.
However, his second term was marred by several controversies, ranging from allegations of corruption in awarding 2G licenses and coal blocks for the Commonwealth Games to the Telangana agitation, protests in Kashmir and tensions with Pakistan.
The Anna Hazare-led Lokpal Bill movement accused the government of high levels of corruption, weakening its credibility.
The inability of Singh and Sonia Gandhi to meet these challenges politically ultimately increased the unpopularity of the UPA, culminating in a massive defeat at the hands of the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2014 general elections.
‘History will be kind to me’
At the end of his tenure as Prime Minister, Singh said that “history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in Parliament”.
He was probably right. At a time when India is facing an economic recession, many will remember how Singh brought India on the path of economic growth in 1991 and saved it from the global recession in 2008-09.
Singh was a staunch critic of the economic policies of the Modi government and correctly predicted that demonetisation would adversely affect India’s economic growth.
He went as far as calling it an act of “organized plunder and legalized plunder”.
Singh continued to work until a few weeks before his death; He took the responsibility of guiding the Punjab government to deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
With his demise, India has lost not only a former Prime Minister and statesman but also one of its brightest minds in matters of economics and governance.
