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Former Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh passed away at the age of 92 on Thursday.
“India feels the absence of a PM with the depth of Manmohan Singh,” former Congress President Rahul Gandhi tweeted a few years back, on the occasion of the birthday of India’s former Prime Minister. “The story of Dr Singh’s life is a story of the rise of a young boy from a humble background to the heights of public service armed only with one tool – his education and scholarship,” former Finance Minister P Chidambaram tweeted. Any words may not be able to truly reflect the high wisdom, great humility and other stellar qualities like honesty, dignity and patriotism, which Dr Manmohan Singh possessed.
Dr Singh, born in a modest family, rose step-by-step in life, with his sheer merit, to occupy the highest office of the country. He was born on September 26, 1932, in Punjab’s village of Gah, before partition. He studied at Panjab University, Cambridge, and Oxford with scholarships. He lost his mother when he was very young and was raised by his paternal grandmother, to whom he was very close.
Dr Singh is referred to as ‘Unexpected FM’ (Finance Minister) and ‘Accidental PM’ (Prime Minister) in good humour. Before Dr Singh unexpectedly became Finance Minister in 1991 in PV Narasimha Rao’s cabinet, he held a plethora of high offices in public service, such as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (1982–85), Head of the Planning Commission (1985-87), in the United Nations (1966-69), Chairman of the University Grants Commission (March 1991) and as advisor to the Prime Minister of India on economic affairs during the tenure of V P Singh.
Dr Manmohan Singh, during launch of his book ‘Changing India’, himself had said, on a lighter note, that he was not only an “accidental prime minister” of India but also the country’s “accidental finance minister”. Recalling how he became India’s Finance Minister by “accident”, Dr Singh said that the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, wanted economist Dr I G Patel for the post. However, as Patel was unwilling to relocate to Delhi to take up the job, it was assigned to Dr Singh.
In 1990-91, Indian Economy was on the brink of collapse. The country was reeling under extreme economic pressure with just enough foreign exchange reserves left to sustain imports for no more than two weeks.
“I do not minimise the difficulties that lie ahead on the long and arduous journey on which we have embarked. But as Victor Hugo once said, “no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea. Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome” – This was the impassioned speech made by Dr Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister while introducing the reformist Budget of 1991. It took the vision and resilience of one man who knew his job to save the Indian Economy.
After evaluating the situation of Indian Economy, Dr Singh realised that what the Indian economy needed desperately – a shift to economic liberalisation and a strategic end to the ‘license raj’. He started with a two-step rupee devaluation programme in collaboration with the RBI, which was first devalued against major currencies by nine percent initially and then brought down to eleven percent two days later. This naturally gave a boost to exports and trade dealings with the international market. Dr Singh also opened up the Indian Economy to foreign capital. This gave the much-needed boost to industrialisation by encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship in the country and also provided direct access to the required capital, technology and target markets.
Considering the fact that the country was seconds away from being banned essential imports, including oil and gas, for no more than two weeks, it was pertinent to rework the existing regulatory framework and trade policy. To this end, a new liberalisation programme was ushered in, for doing away with unnecessary controls, streamlining the licensing process and linking non-essential imports to exports to discourage such non-essential imports.
In a bid to open up the economy, quantitative restrictions or import licencing for imports of goods has been removed. Another major step taken towards liberalisation of the Indian economy was to make the Indian rupee fully convertible on current account since March 1993.
The new industrial policy of 1991 has been adopted under which far-reaching structural reforms have been initiated to lift excess direct controls and regulations on industries and to ensure a free-market oriented economic system. The list of industries reserved for the public sector has been pruned. Only 6 industries remain reserved for the public sector. Thus, the new industrial policy of 1991 threw open all those de-reserved industries such as iron and steel, electricity, air transport, ship building, heavy machinery, heavy chemicals, telecommunication cables and instruments for the private sector for investment and growth. Disinvestment in public sector undertakings was also introduced in 1991.
Until 1991, the Indian industrial sector had functioned under a system of tight controls and regulations represented by industrial licencing. The new industrial policy abolished all industrial licencing irrespective of the level of investment, except for 15 industries for which industrial licence was still required. These 15 industries are those which are essential for the security of nation and for protection of environment.
As India’s Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014 during UPA-1 and UPA-2, Dr Singh received both bouquets and brickbats – bouquets for his numerous achievements and brickbats for a few shortcomings. Top achievements include an average real GDP growth rate of 8.5% achieved during the 10-year rule (a record achievement), signing of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal, introduction of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act of 2005, launching of several social mission schemes such as MGNREGA for providing guaranteed rural employment, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Right to Information (RTI) Act etc. A few brickbats are the hyped-up scams like Coal Scam and 2-G Scam.
“Dr Manmohan Singh belongs to a select list of serious scholars who went on to become substantial politicians. They include Woodrow Wilson, who was President of the American Political Science Association before he became President of the United States; Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, a left-wing professor of sociology who promoted right-wing economic policies while occupying the highest political office in his country; Andreas Papandreou, who was chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley before becoming Prime Minister of Greece; and the first President of free Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who wrote a classic work of anthropology while his country was still under British colonial rule” wrote Ramachandra Guha in an article published in 2018.
[Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, India, via Wikimedia Commons]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
The author is an alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad and a retired senior corporate professional.
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