Dr. Manmohan Singh ( 1932 – 2024)

The only time I had the privilege to listen to Nani Palkhivala, the eminent constitutional lawyer and scholar, live was in 1991 in Chennai when he came to deliver his customary annual speech on that year’s budget. His budget speeches, known for their deep insight and eloquent erudition, drew more crowds than cricket matches, and I remember the venue where he spoke that year was an open-air enclosure somewhere near the Marina beach. It was filled to capacity. People were fanning themselves to keep cool in the sweltering summer heat of Chennai. The sea breeze, which typically sets in around sunset, was beginning to cool the place when Mr. Palkhivala entered the stage at 6 PM sharp. He had a reputation for punctuality, and I witnessed it in action. He walked straight to the podium without a single note in his hand and started his speech with this remarkable statement: “This year’s Budget is not a budget for the greedy, paid for by the needy.” He then went on to describe Dr. Manmohan Singh’s budget as a watershed moment in India’s history, as a break from the past to an indescribably brighter future for India, and how Dr. Singh’s singular budget held the chance to liberate India from the shackles of bureaucracy and stifling socialism under which it had been groveling and suffocating for forty-odd years. At one stroke, Dr. Singh, with the nod from P.V. Narasimha Rao, turned a new leaf in India’s history, and the reverberations of that cataclysmic shift in economic vision, purpose, and democratic principles are still being felt. The economic juggernaut that Dr. Singh set rolling has never stopped.

Dr. Manmohan Singh passed away at the age of 92. His only wish was that he would be remembered kindly by history. That is odd for a man who is widely credited as the architect of present-day India, especially with the growth of a robust middle class and India’s rising superstardom over the last thirty years on the global stage. It has been a matter of debate for over thirty years since that landmark budget whether India was arm-twisted by international bodies to liberalize the Indian economy in 1992 or whether the budget was a stroke of genius by Manmohan Singh, the economist who felt that the time was ripe for the yoke of protectionism to be shed. There is no single answer to this question. The truth may lie somewhere between. It is a fact that in 1991, the Indian economy was tottering at the edge of bankruptcy with just enough foreign exchange reserves to cover two weeks of imports. If drastic measures hadn’t been taken, India would have had to default on debt payments—a situation not just embarrassing for democratic India but one that would have led to a more significant economic crisis with the livelihood of millions of people at stake.

In 1991, India was a predominantly poor country. That was the stark reality. Our policies, for decades, though well-intended, one would presume, hadn’t helped build a strong middle class or even managed to pull a significant number of people out of poverty. Our neighboring countries, with far fewer resources and potential, had outstripped us in every department of national progress. As Palkhivala said during his speech, “We are poor and underdeveloped by policy,” not by anything else. As a nation, we chose to be protective and wary of opening up our borders to trade. Perhaps our experience with the British East India Company continued to haunt us, and we treated every international business transaction with suspicion, mistrust, and red tape. We willingly leaned towards a welfare state, and the only thing the Government bothered to do with any conviction was to give away subsidies and set up massive, operationally unprofitable industries. While it was understandable that protecting local industries was essential for a newly formed republic, successive governments allowed themselves to be strangled by the very policies that were designed to propel India to a prosperous future. We didn’t know when to open up. While international markets and trade were maturing, India was becoming an island unto itself, losing touch with everything around. The situation in 1991 was dire, and it needed a man of the academic stature of Dr. Manmohan Singh and the blessings of a shrewd and equally educated prime minister to present a budget that proposed to ventilate the airs of an economy choking from its self-generated smoke of protectionism and welfare measures.

It needed Dr. Singh’s courage of conviction and a tremendous leap of educated faith to undertake the reforms in the manner he did. He was a scholar, after all. He knew his subject well. He understood the impact of historical forces on a nation’s journey. He realized that 1991 was the chance to make a different turn. Yes, he knew as much as anybody else that what he proposed was a risky move and a move that could backfire. But that is the kind of risk that changes the course of nations. Dr. Singh had great confidence in India’s potential, and his budget was a testament to that confidence. His confidence stood vindicated soon enough. Once the economy was liberalized and the bar to do business was lowered, India’s outlook changed quickly. Foreign reserves swelled, international companies swamped in, newfound energy gripped the nation, a hitherto unknown middle class with a strong financial base and education emerged, international travel became ubiquitous, and the benefits of a free economy changed the very texture of the country and perception of India on the global stage. Indian millennials born after 1995 will find it hard to understand how India was before 1992. A seismic, irrevocable shift had taken place.

Why Dr. Manmohan Singh was concerned about his name in history has more to do with his uncomfortable stint as the Prime Minister of India between 2004 and 2014. There couldn’t have been a more decent and well-educated man in that office, there is no doubt about that, but was he really in charge? That was the real question. Did someone else at the party hold the strings, and was Dr. Singh the puppet? Prime ministership has a lot to do with optics, and during those years, the optics that Dr. Singh projected weren’t very convincing. There is a world of difference between holding a post that requires your educational acumen and your knowledge of the subject and having a post that requires acute leadership skills, especially in a political milieu such as India. It is universally acknowledged that Dr. Manmohan Singh was a “good” Prime Minister, but was he an effective one? Did he have a voice that could hold its own against the party that he belonged to? Or was he reconciled to being a mouthpiece for them? There have been times when Dr. Singh threatened resignation as a weapon if he didn’t have his way, but that is hardly a sign of power in a post that demands unequivocal respect and authority. It is widely believed—and again, as I said, it is the perception that matters—that Dr. Singh was acting on behalf of someone. Whether that was true or not – I am not a keen observer of politics – but from what I read and saw during his tenure, it did look like he didn’t quite have the same conviction on political matters as he did on economic issues. At least, it didn’t come out well. Let me leave it at that.

Dr. Manmohan Singh does not need to worry about his legacy or his place in Indian history. It is safe and secure, and in fact, it will be written in golden letters. He is the architect of modern India. A hundred years down the line, when people ask when India’s ascendancy on the global stage began, they will rewind to the year 1991, when a short turbaned Sardar with a trimmed white beard and gentle eyes behind a large pair of glasses read out a path-breaking budget as if he was delivering a routine academic lecture to a class of unruly students. They will look with awe at this professor-turned-politician for managing to steer the country from the brink of a financial precipice and set it on its path toward growth and prosperity. Above all, history books would note with kind words and profuse admiration this man who graced every office he occupied with humility and intellectual standing.

Thank you, sir.

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