Manmohan Singh passes at the age of 92
27/12/2024 6:07
Described as a "reluctant
king" in his first stint as prime minister, the soft-spoken
Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday at the age of 92, was
arguably one of India's most successful leaders.
Singh, the first Sikh to lead his nation, was prime minister
from 2004 to 2014, serving a rare two terms. He had been
undergoing care for age-related medical conditions.
Singh is credited with steering India to unprecedented
economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of dire
poverty.
"India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished
leaders," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Born into a poor family in a part of British-ruled India now
in Pakistan, Manmohan Singh studied by candlelight to win a
place at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, earning
a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade
in India's economy.
He became a respected economist, then India's central bank
governor and a government adviser, but had no apparent plans for
a political career when he was suddenly tapped to become finance
minister in 1991.
During that tenure to 1996, Singh was the architect of
reforms that saved India's economy from a severe balance of
payments crisis and promoted deregulation, as well as other
measures that opened an insular country to the world.
Famously quoting Victor Hugo in his first budget speech, he
said: "No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,"
before adding: "The emergence of India as a major economic power
in the world happens to be one such idea."
Singh's ascension to prime minister in 2004 was even more
unexpected.
He was asked to take on the job by Sonia Gandhi, who had led
the centre-left Congress Party to a surprise victory. Italian by
birth, she feared her ancestry would be used by
Hindu-nationalist opponents to attack the government if she were
to lead the country.
Riding an unprecedented period of economic growth, Singh's
government shared the spoils of India's newfound wealth,
introducing welfare schemes such as a jobs programme for the
rural poor.
In 2008, his government also clinched a landmark deal that
permitted peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United
States for the first time in three decades, paving the way for
strong relations between New Delhi and Washington.
But his efforts to further open up the Indian economy were
frequently frustrated by political wrangling within his own
party and demands made by coalition partners.
'HISTORY WILL BE KINDER TO ME'
While he was widely respected by other world leaders, at
home Singh always had to fend off the perception that Sonia
Gandhi was the real power in the government.
The widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose
family has dominated Indian politics since independence from
Britain in 1947, she remained Congress Party leader and often
made key decisions.
Known for his simple lifestyle and with a reputation for
honesty, Singh was not personally seen as corrupt. But he came
under attack for failing to crack down on members of his
government as a series of scandals erupted in his second term,
triggering mass protests.
The latter years of his premiership saw the Indian growth
story that he had helped engineer wobble as global economic
turbulence and slow government decision-making battered
investment sentiment.
In 2012, his government was tipped into a minority after the
Congress Party's biggest ally quit their coalition in protest at
the entry of foreign supermarkets.
Two years later Congress was decisively swept aside by the
Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi, a strongman who
promised to end the economic standstill, clean up graft and
bring inclusive growth to the hinterlands.
At a press conference not long before he left office, Singh
insisted he had done the best he could.
"I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than
the contemporary media or, for that matter, the opposition
parties in parliament," he said.
Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.
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