ARJAVA MEDIA
Former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh is now no more. A highly mature politician but without any mass base, Dr Singh was aged 92.
The architect of India’s liberalisation and reform policy, Dr Singh was an accidental politician but could run a coalition government for two consecutive terms. In 2004, when the then-incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost the majority, the Indian National Congress (INC) chose Dr Singh as a Prime Minister candidate after forming a post-poll alliance named United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Singh led the coalition even with many internal contradictions and ruled for two terms.
Dr Singh was never elected to the Lok Sabha. He contested only once in his political life but lost. Thereafter he never contested. That was the first time in India’s history that the Prime Minister for two consecutive terms came through Rajya Sabha – without fighting a direct poll battle.
Dr Singh became Finance Minister in 1991 when Narasimha Rao invited him to join his cabinet. That was the time India was struggling with Balance of Payment (BoP) deepening the current account deficit. India then needed a non-politician and a thorough economist thinking beyond the socialist ideology to take bold steps, which included ending the license-permit-raj and gradual exit from the subsidy regime. All these sounded like bad politics in those days. However, Narasimha Rao gave Dr Singh seemingly complete freedom to reset India’s economy. His reform processes fuelled the growth of the Indian economy.
Born on 26th September 1932 in Gah in Punjab (now a part of Pakistan) Dr Singh was more of an economist, academician and bureaucrat than a politician. He was the longest-serving Congress Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Educated at Punjab University, Oxford and Cambridge Dr Singh’s parents migrated to India after India’s partition. Dr Singh was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for 27 months between 16 September 1982 and 14 January 1985.
Dr Singh presented his first Union budget as Finance Minister on 24th July 1991. “As I rise, I am overpowered by a strange feeling of loneliness. I miss a handsome, smiling face listening intently to the budget speech. Shri Rajiv Gandhi is no more.” Dr Singh said at the outset of his first budget presentation. Dr Singh remained a Gandhi loyalist ever since.
