India will always see Manmohan Singh, who passed away at the age of 92 on Thursday night, as the architect of its economic reforms. The Congress party he belonged to should acknowledge his contribution in kinder terms.The economist entered the political stage as PV Narasimha Rao’s finance minister. “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” Singh went on to declare in his maiden budget speech, before sallying forth in the company of his Prime Minister to break the licence raj shackles of an emaciated economy. He deregulated the economy. He revolutionalised the taxation policy. He re-defined India’s FDI and trade outlook.Singh achieved this when the economic situation was in the doldrums, and India faced the ignominy of pledging its gold to raise money. The country’s Balance of Payments and the fiscal deficit had gone south. There was a bare minimum of forex reserves. And India had no option but to spread its hands before the IMF.As Prime Minister for two successive terms, he continued liberalising the economy, overcoming intense pressure from various corners, domestic and foreign and, worst of all, from within his party.He completed his innings as a parliamentarian in early 2024, perhaps satisfied that he would hold the record of having been the Grand Old Party’s last Prime Minister for a long time to come.Steering this big nation, its twisted federal structure, and a chequered polity divided ideologically, linguistically, and regionally was never easy for him. The gentle soul who never raised his voice because he could not raise it beyond civil decibels remained a man of contradictions.He was reluctant to be drawn into national service. He would be called the reluctant prime minister. But the studious professor must have learnt the tricks of politics and realpolitik from the accidental prime minister — his predecessor.Coincidentally, their personalities and characters complemented each other. They were ‘outsiders’ in the Congress family command’s scheme of things. Whatever the reason that propelled them to the prime minister’s chair, they did justice to it, at least from their perspectives.Both survived shabby treatment by their party’s high command. Rao’s fate was by far the worst, declared a pariah even in death. Singh’s was more a public humiliation in parliament when the high command’s scion humiliated him, the prime minister, by tearing the copy of a proposed bill.He was called Sonia Gandhi’s rubber stamp. Tales were exchanged about how he informed her of cabinet decisions. The party set-up behaved formally with him, tolerating him as a prime minister, never a political leader.Yet, the scholar-politician-statesman achieved a lot. If he complained, he never let anybody know. He had an endearing smile he would occasionally break into — a rare exhibition of emotion. Staunchly secular and a true patriot, he reserved his displeasure for the unabashed Hindutva bandied about across the country after 2014. He had his principles, and nothing would make him move an inch.Singh fled to India during Partition. After graduating from Panjab University, he read economics at Cambridge and Oxford. He could have stayed in a cushy teaching or research job, but he preferred returning to India and taking up a lecturer’s post at Panjab University.Gradually, he was drawn into institutions linked to the government before finally entering the finance ministry for the first time in 1972. From there, it was a natural step to the Planning Commission, the Reserve Bank of India and the South Commission.His economic crusades laid the foundation for a transformed India into a world market dotted by unicorn startups and an ever-expanding entrepreneurial space, a stock market touching the skies, a stature in the comity of nations that is not easily ignored, the growing size of rupee-millionaires and billionaires, and, of course, achieving the status of the fastest growing fifth-largest economy that rivals the first world. Yes, the resulting capitalist push made Indians aspirational while inevitably widening the economic disparities between population groups.From near-bankruptcy to monumental growth, Manmohan Singh made it all possible. Silently.
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