This Is The Man Who Transformed A Billion Lives For The Better
A tribute to former Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh.
Manmohan Singh’s actions moulded a billion life
Getty Images: Manmohan Singh during 2004’s oath-taking ceremony.
After his death on 26th December, 2024, evening, people in India are pouring in tributes and retrospection to the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s contributions to their nation.
From 2004 to 2014 Manmohan Singh[a] (26 September 1932 – 26 December 2024) was an Indian politician, economist, professor, and bureaucrat who presided over 13th prime minister of India. After Jawahralal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Narendra Modi, he was the fourth prime minister with longest tenure. Singh, an Indian National Congress member, was India’s first Sikh prime minister. Following a complete five-year term, he also became the first prime minister since Nehru to be re-elected.
Originally from Gah in what is now Pakistan, Singh’s family moved to India during its 1947 division. Following his degree in economics from the University of Oxford, Singh worked for the United Nations 1966–1969. Then he started his official career when Lalit Narayan Mishra appointed him as an advisor for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Singh occupied numerous important positions in the Indian government during the 1970s and 1980s, including president of the Planning Commission (1985–1987), governor of the Reserve Bank (1982–1985) and Chief Economic Advisor (1972–1976).
P. V. Narasimha Rao, the recently appointed prime minister of India, included the apolitical Singh into his cabinet as finance minister in 1991, during a serious economic crisis. Notwithstanding fierce resistance, he implemented a number of fundamental changes that opened India’s economy during the next few years. Though these steps helped to prevent the catastrophe and improved Singh’s profile internationally as a reform-minded economist, the current Congress Party performed badly in the 1996 general election. Singh then led the opposition in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament) during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1998–2004.
When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance took office in 2004, Sonia Gandhi, its chairman, suddenly handed Singh the prime ministership. Among the important laws and initiatives he first oversaw were the Right to Information Act, Unique Identification Authority, Rural Employment Guarantee plan, and National Rural Health Mission. After left front parties withdrew their support in 2008, opposition to a landmark civil nuclear accord with the United States almost brought Singh’s administration down. BRICS was formed in 2009 including India among its founding members. Over his reign, India’s economy expanded quickly.
Singh kept the post of prime minister when the UPA returned in 2009 general election carrying more mandate. He chose to drop out of the 2014 Indian general election run for prime minister after his term ran up.[9} Although Singh never belonged to the Lok Sabha, he represented Assam from 1991 to 2019 and Rajasthan from 2019 to 2024 on the Rajya Sabha.
Between 2004 and 2014, Singh, who occupied the highest position two times consecutively, was regarded as architect of India’s economic reform, therefore altering the course of national development.
Singh was also the first Sikh to occupy the highest position since Jawahralal Nehru came to power.
Often referred to be a soft-spoken technocrat, he had already led the opposition in the upper house of parliament, served as a finance secretary and minister, and directed India’s central bank.
From Singh’s life, these five events helped to define his career and influence more than a billion Indians.
Economic Growth
Getty Images: Singh oversaw the 1990s economic deregulating movement.
Under Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao, the Congress party-led government named Singh finance minister in 1991.
With its foreign reserves perilously low, barely sufficient to cover two weeks of imports, India’s economy at the moment was in a major financial crisis.
Singh headed the effort to deregulate the economy in order to prevent its collapse—which he said was otherwise inevitable. Singh won in spite of strong resistance from people in his government and party.
He implemented audacious policies including devaluation of the currency, lower import taxes and privatisation of government-owned businesses.
“No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come” he famously said in parliament during his first budget statement in 1991.
Later on as prime minister, Singh kept expanding on his economic reform initiatives, helping millions of Indians escape poverty and thereby contribute to India’s ascent among the fastest-growing major economies in the world.
Anti-Sikh riot Apology
Prime minister Indira Gandhi was killed in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards in response to a military operation she had approved against separatists sheltering in the holy temple of Sikhism in northern India’s Amritsar.
Her passing set off extreme violence that claimed over 3,000 Sikhs’ lives and caused extensive property damage.
Saying the violence “the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our constitution,” Singh formally apologised to the country in parliament in 2005.
“I am not hesitant about apologising to the Sikh community. I apologies not just to the Sikh community but also to the whole country of India,” he remarked.
None other prime minister, especially from the Congress party, has gone to parliament to really apologies for the riots.
Not Much Keen to Be the Prime Minister
Getty Images: Although Singh received criticism from opposition parties for following Gandhi’s family’s instructions, he consistently disregarded the jibes.
Returning in 2004, the Congress party unexpectedly defeated the government headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Though many of the departing ruling party members questioned her birthplace of Italy, Congress chairwoman Sonia Gandhi was generally expected to lead the country. She turned down the role instead suggesting Singh’s name, a non-controversial, consensus choice with outstanding personal integrity.
He helped his party get a larger mandate in the next legislative election, but detractors sometimes referred to him as a “remote-controlled” prime minister run under the Gandhi family.
Singh kept his attention on the work and regularly refrained to remark on such accusations.
He might have begun his first term as prime minister with some trepidation, but he swiftly established his power on the highest position.
Particularly between 2004 and 2009, Singh’s tenure saw the GDP of the nation rise at a decent average pace of roughly 8%, the second quickest among big nations.
On reforms, he made audacious choices and attracted more outside capital for his nation. Experts attribute his protection of India from the 2008 worldwide financial crisis.
Though his personal integrity was never called into doubt, his second term, in an alliance with a diverse array of parties, was tarnished by claims of corruption against some of his cabinet officials.
Reacting to these claims, he told reporters in 2014 during his farewell press conference that he hoped history would view him differently.
“I really feel that history will be kinder to me than the modern media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament,” he remarked.
“I have done as best as I could have given the conditions and the compulsions of a coalition polity.”
Rights To Knowledge, Information, And Identity, Education
Getty Images: Singh instituted rules with broad influence on Indian democracy.
Singh made several vital decisions as prime minister that still affect the health of Indian democracy today.
He proposed new legislation enabling citizens an amazing power to hold authorities responsible by strengthening and guaranteeing their right to ask questions of the government.
A move experts believed had a significant effect on rural incomes and poverty reduction, he also presented a rural employment scheme guaranteeing livelihood for at least 100 days.
His legislation also guaranteed children between the ages of six and fourteen their access to free and compulsory education, therefore greatly lowering the school dropout rates.
To increase financial inclusion and welfare benefit delivery to the underprivileged, his government also started a distinctive identity project called Aadhar. Run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the present federal administration has kept Aadhar as pillar of many of its initiatives.
Dealing with the United States.
Getty Images: Singh reached a landmark agreement ending India’s nuclear isolation with the US in 2008.
After India’s 1998 weapon system tests, Singh negotiated a historic agreement with the US to remove India’s nuclear isolation.
His government said that the agreement will enable India to maintain its healthy rate of growth and satisfy its rising energy consumption.
Considered as a turning point in the India-US ties, the agreement guaranteed India a waiver to start civilian nuclear trading with the US and the rest of the globe.
Critics of the treaty, however, claimed it would impair India’s sovereignty and independence in foreign policy, therefore generating great resistance. The Left Front quit supporting the ruling alliance in protest.
Singh did, however, preserve the deal as well as his government.
