Anup Kumar Baruah
(akbaruah1956@gmail.com)
Dr. Manmohan Singh had to face a lot of negative narratives, particularly during his second stint at the helm of the Union Government, for his presumably submissive ways before the chairperson of the UPA, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. But history will definitely reserve a lot of accolades for this exceptionally gifted economist-administrator who also developed into a statesman of considerable ability.
Dr. Manmohan Singh’s roots were in the rural settings of colonial western Punjab, where he was born in Gah village in 1932. He was an alumnus of Punjab University, Cambridge University, and Oxford University, and his subject of specialisation happened to be economics. Dr. Singh’s stint in the higher echelons of the Union Government started in 1972 when he was made Chief Economic Adviser in the Finance Ministry. He subsequently served for a few years as the finance secretary and then graced the office of the governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1985. He also served in the Planning Commission as its vice chairman from 1985 until he became the secretary general of the South Commission, which was an independent economic policy think tank based in Geneva. He was in this assignment till November 1990.
Dr. Manmohan Singh was seriously considering an academic assignment in early 1991 when he was chosen to be the finance minister by the Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, and the rest, as they say, is history. A lot of drastic steps were required during those troubled times to get rid of a chaotic financial situation, which was a result of considerable fiscal indiscipline on the part of quite a few previous governments and also the Gulf War of 1990-91. It is worth mentioning that Narasimha Rao’s immediate predecessor, late Chandra Sekhar, already had to mortgage a quantity of the country’s gold, which gave the economy some breathing space, although for a very brief period. This was obviously an absolute necessity as the country was on the verge of defaulting on external payment dues because of an alarmingly deteriorating financial situation. As the successor government’s finance minister, Manmohan Singh’s hands were obviously full with a plethora of problems calling for drastic steps. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao himself gave ample hints of the alarming economic situation in his inaugural address to the nation. “The economy is in a crisis. The balance of payments situation is exceedingly difficult. Inflationary pressures on the price level are considerable. There is no time to lose”.
Manmohan’s immediate suggestions for radical measures to the Prime Minister were twofold: devaluation of the rupee and mortgaging of another quantity of the country’s gold. He was, however, pragmatic enough to caution Late Narasimha Rao regarding the likely fallout in the form of vehement opposition protests over the said measures. Narasimha Rao immediately called up the then leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, late Atal Behari Bajpayee, and ensured his support. The suggested steps were implemented. First came the devaluation of the rupee in the first week of July, 1991, and then the mortgaging of 46.91 tonnes of gold for an amount of Rs. 405 million USD. These steps brought considerable relief, although not for a very long period.
Dr. Manmohan Singh then presented the most revolutionary budget of independent India on 24th July’ 1991. It is a well-known fact that this budget was instrumental in bringing in an era of economic liberalisation and fiscal discipline. The measures taken up in July 1991 on an emergency basis through the budgetary steps and the industrial policy, which was also presented in the Lok Sabha on the budget day itself, were sustained and augmented by similar measures in economic liberalisation, industrial reform, and fiscal stabilization. The major international lending institutions, including the IMF, were convinced that India was truly on its way towards economic growth and fiscal stability. In fact, by November 1991, Dr. Manmohan Singh was able to clinch a deal for hefty financial assistance from the IMF in favour of the country, which helped considerably to tide over the ongoing economic crisis. A few lines from Dr. Singh’s budget speech will not probably be out of place here. Quoting from Victor Hugo, he declared, “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” He further added, “I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea.”
Manmohan Singh became the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha in 1998 and graced this office till 2004. The United Progressive Alliance, with the Indian National Congress as its major constituent, came to power in 2004, and Dr. Manmohan Singh became the choice for the prime ministerial office. Dr. Singh’s tenure of prime ministership for 10 consecutive years was full of remarkable achievements. A few of these are mentioned below.
The Civil Nuclear Agreement with the US, which was a consequence of the July 2005 joint statement by Prime Minister Dr. Singh and the then US President George W. Bush, under which India agreed to pledge all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, and in exchange, the United States agreed to work towards full civil nuclear cooperation with India, brought in an era of a considerably more beneficial relationship with the US as well as some other countries in the subsequent years. On the domestic front, some of the most important initiatives were the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which was launched in April 2005; the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), passed in September 2005; the Right to Information Act, which became fully operational in October 2005; and the National Food Security Act of September 2013. The idea behind the National Rural Health Mission was to provide accessible healthcare to the particularly vulnerable rural population. Similarly, the MGNREGA aimed to provide a legal guarantee of a certain minimum number of days of wage employment to every rural household and was indeed a very worthwhile step toward alleviating rural poverty. The National Food Security Act, which became operational towards the last months of Dr. Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister, was a very ambitious one as it wanted to ensure subsidised food for almost two-thirds of the country’s total population. The Right to Information Act handed over to the Indian masses a very potent tool for ensuring some transparency in the functioning of the various establishments of the Central Government as well as different State Governments, in spite of its provisions being misused on occasions by some unscrupulous citizens for furthering vested self-interests.
Dr. Manmohan Singh was never a politician with any kind of grassroots base. However, he very successfully developed considerable political acumen and succeeded in ensuring the continuance of his government for two full terms. All said and done, Dr. Singh’s induction into the Cabinet by late P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991 and his choice to grace the Office of the Prime Minister in 2004 might have been a little accidental. However, he did much more than justice to these two august offices and rendered invaluable service to the nation, possible only for a person of absolute integrity, dedication, exceptional intellectual and administrative capabilities, and abundantly humane qualities.