Dr. Manmohan Singh – the greatest Economist, reformer Prime Minister passes away
Mr. Manmohan Singhji, the former Finance Minister and the Prime Minister of India for a decade from 2004 to 2014 under UPI rule, breathed his last on 26th December 2024.
Manmohan Singh is unarguably the most educated and intellectual Finance Minister and PM India ever had. He did his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Economics, topping throughout his academic career. He then did Economics Tripos from Cambridge and PhD from Oxford. After a short stint as a Professor in Economics at Punjab University, he took up an assignment with the United Nations and World Bank. In his long stint as a bureaucrat, he held very high-profile positions in the Government of India as Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Governor of RBI, Chairman of UGC, Dy. Chairman of the Planning Commission, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on economic affairs before becoming the Finance Minister in P V Narasimha Rao ministry.
Manmohan Singh the Finance Minister
In 1991 India faced an unprecedented economic crisis and was on the verge of recession. Prime Minister Mr. P V Narasimha Rao has picked a non-politician bureaucrat Mr. Manmohan Singh to head Finance Ministry and the Chanakya Chadra Gupta jodi has heralded bold economic reforms by
Abolishing License Raj
Disinvestment of public sector companies
Removing obstacles for foreign director investment by increasing the FDI limits in most industries and opening many industries for FDI for the first time
Allowing foreign companies to bring modern technology and development into the country
Cutting the SLR and CRR rates and liberalizing interest rates facilitating growth of private banks by loosening restrictions.
Scrapping MRTP
With all these measures put in place, the Indian economy has transformed from being a Socialist economy to a Capitalist economy. In the wake of these liberalisation measures taken by Mr Manmohan Singh, as a bail-out measure World Bank has sanctioned IBRD loan of USD 250 million and IDA credit SDR 183.8 million. To secure the loans from the World Bank and IMF India was forced to pledge 20 tonnes of Gold. Pledging of Gold, withdrawal of subsidies for fertilizers, and hikes in oil prices received a lot of flack from the opposition parties and was widely debated. Undoubtedly, economic liberalisation has not only averted the crisis that threatened the country’s existence but put the Indian economy back on track to become a modern and globalised economy and created millions of new jobs. Indian companies have also become globally competitive in different sectors including Telecom, Pharmaceuticals, IT and Biotechnology. On the flip side, it made the Indian economy more vulnerable to global market forces, such as fluctuations in commodity prices, exchange rates and global demand for exports. Taking such a tough decision and putting sweeping measures in place is not child’s play and a seasoned and shrewd politician like PV Narasimha Rao could take and he needed a brilliant economist like Manmohan Singh to implement the same and bail the country out which they succeeded. This is more credible when we consider the fact that PV Narasimha Rao was heading a minority Government and there were huge coalition compulsions. Despite all the criticism that Manmohan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao faced, no subsequent Government, whichever party they belonged to, discarded or discontinued the liberalization measure initiated by Manmohan Singh and continued with them in some form or the other without showing the magnanimity of acknowledging the pioneering efforts of Manmohan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao
Manmohan Singh – The Puppet Prime Minister
Upsetting all the predictions of poll pundits, who predicted the BJP to retain power, the Congress-led UPA emerged victorious in 2004 general elections. When everyone thought it is a mere formality that Sonia would become the PM, either because of her Italian roots or as per her, listening to her inner call, Sonia Gandhi decided to step aside and preferred to be the Kingmaker. There was a toss-up between Manmohan Singha and Pranab Mukherjee. A strong perception was that the Gandhis wanted a total yesman and it was here that Pranabda could have been found wanting if some political sources were to be believed.
Pranabda was way ahead in terms of his long political career as an astute politician and a hard-core loyalist of the Gandhi Parivar and Congress party. But he has a mind of his own, brutally frank upright, and tougher to handle than Manmohan Singh. In the experience that Sonia and Rahul had with PV Narasimha Rao, their obvious choice and preference was for a meek yes-man who is capable at the same time. They wanted to do back seat driving and wanted someone to be a puppet dancing on their pulling the strings. On this count, the choice is very obvious that it has to be Manmohan Singh at the cost of sacrificing a better candidate Pranabda. Thus Manmohan Singh has become the Accidental Puppet Prime Minister, without any aspiration to hold the august post, more being an affable candidate than anything else.
From that day started a decade-long insult, humiliation, and belittling of the elderly wise man by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and the abject surrender of Manmohan Singh to unacceptable behaviour and treatment by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi which didn’t behove the PM post he held. Keeping all the protocol aside, he used to stand up when Sonia Gandhi, who was nothing but just the President of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, just an MP used to enter the room/hall and greet them with folded hands without any reciprocation. Foreign dignitaries and Heads of State were made to meet Sonia Gandhi first then the PM and the way he was made to step aside or used to step aside himself was not a scene, which he or any Indian, especially the Sikh community, should feel proud of.
The lowest point was when Rahul Gandhi tore up a copy of the Bill passed by the parliament outside at a press conference and MMS could not even condemn it. His tenure as the PM was riddled with allegations of scams viz., CWG scam, coal scam, 2G scam, Chopper scam, Adarsh scam, and Cash-for-votes scam. But even after 11 years, most of none of the scams have ever been conclusively investigated and proven, But, even the the worst of his opponents have ever pointed fingers at him for being dishonest, corrupt or making money for himself or his family though there is no denying that these alleged scams have taken place during his tenure as PM.
The two-term decade-long tenure of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister was marked by some remarkable achievements, like the Right to Information (RTI), the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and the Right to Education. He has a unique distinction, at that time, being the only PM, after Nehru, to come back to power after servicing a complete 5 years term as Prime Minister of India. He also holds a dubious distinction of not winning a single general election and always being sent to Rajya Sabha.
He had patience, tenacity, and endurance to survive for such a long time in Politics, a muddy Dangal, to which he never belonged. In one of the press conferences in 2014 Manmohan Singh, in response to BJP dubbing him the “weakest PM” said, “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the Opposition parties in Parliament.”
Keeping aside his decade-long tenure as the Prime Minister of India, and the way he was treated by the Nehru-Gandhi family, he deserves to be remembered with all respect as one of the most intellectual politicians India ever had, the finest Gentleman politicians, an Ajatshatru, the soft-spoken and mild-mannered person who never used any harsh words against anyone including his political opponents. As an economist he is peerless.
A life worth lived
Rest in Peace
*S. Prabhakar is a Company Secretary, Advocate and Insolvency Professional
