Dr Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014 and architect of the 1991 reforms that liberalised the Indian economy, passed away at 9:51 PM on Thursday, December 26, 2024, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. He was 92 years old at the time of his death. Dr Singh is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur and three daughters.
Born on September 26, 1932, in Gah, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan), Singh migrated to Haldwani, in independent India, with his family after Partition. In 1948, the Singh family relocated to Amritsar where he studied at the Hindu College and the Panjab University, then in Hoshiarpur. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in 1952 and 1954 respectively, and completed his Economics Tripos at the University of Cambridge in 1957 under the tutelage of British economists Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor. After Cambridge, Singh returned to India and briefly served as a teacher at Panjab University, his alma mater. In 1960, he went to the University of Oxford for his DPhil, and received the doctorate in 1962.
After returning to India, Dr Singh taught at the Panjab University and the prestigious Delhi School of Economics before joining the Indian government in 1971 as an economic advisor in the Ministry of Commerce. In 1982, he became the Chief Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, and also served as a deputy chair of the Planning Commission, and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
As the Minister of Finance in the P.V. Narsimha Rao administration, Dr Singh abolished the License Raj and introduced reforms that opened up the Indian economy and moved India from a socialist-patterned economy toward a more capitalist model in the face of a massive balance of payments deficit, preventing a potential economic crisis in 1991.
In 2004, Dr Singh became the 13th Prime Minister of India. He was the first Sikh to assume the Prime Minister's Office and made a public apology in the Parliament for the 1984 Sikh Massacre in which almost 3,000 Sikhs were killed after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for Operation Blue Star.
During his ten years in office, Dr Singh enacted landmark social welfare programmes such as the National Employment Guarantee Act, the National Rural Health Mission, the Right to Education Act, and the Right to Information Act, and codified children's right to education under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. India became one of the 135 nations to recognise education as a fundamental right of every child when the act came into effect on April 1, 2010.
A key figure in the formation of the BRICS intergovernmental organisation in 2009, Dr Singh's tenure as Prime Minister was marked by several foreign policy achievements like improved Sino-India relations, improved relations with Japan and the European Union, and the 2006 Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement which ended India's nuclear isolation.
Despite his many achievements, Dr Singh's second term in office was marred by allegations of human rights violations during Operation Green Hunt, criticism over amendments made to the Unwanted Activities (Prevention) Act after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and widespread corruption in the government. Dr Singh did not contest the 2014 general elections for the 16th Lok Sabha and resigned his post when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance won the election.
During his final press conference as the Prime Minister of India, Dr Singh said, "I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the Opposition parties in Parliament". It was the last ever press conference by a sitting Prime Minister of India as of 2024.
Watch Dr Manmohan Singh's final press conference as Prime Minister here:
Considered by many to be the maker of post-modern India, Dr Manmohan Singh was the last of his kind — a gentle giant of Indian politics. He liberalised the Indian economy, lifted millions out of poverty, signed the civilian nuclear agreement with USA, and — for better or worse — charted the course for India's 21st-century future. Beyond his political and economic acumen, his time as the Prime Minister of India shall forever remind us that there is still a place for grace, eloquence, and fundamental human decency within the highest office in the country.
Dr Singh's passing marks the end of a more civilised era of Indian politics. He was kind, compassionate, and above all, an uncommonly decent man. History will indeed be kind to him.
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