Dr Manmohan Singh died last night (26 December, 2024). He was a good man. He was a great patriot.
He was a person truly wronged by history, especially in the twilight of his momentous public career. Wronged by constitutional institutions. Wronged by mercenary rhetoricians.
Wronged by unscrupulous politicians. But such was his legacy, his levity, that much of the muck left him untouched, falling instead on his detractors. I first met Dr Saheb for a television interview immediately after his landmark budget of 1991.
India’s economy had been asphyxiated by years of regulatory choke. The Kuwait invasion was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. We had to pledge our gold to stave off an IMF default.
Egged on by Prime Minister Rao, Finance Minister Singh seized the crisis to unleash reforms that were impossible, unthinkable in state-strangled India. The rupee was devalued by over fifty percent in two bold strikes in less than a week. Industrial licensing was abolished.
Foreign capital could flow freely into Indian securities, propelled by a fully convertible rupee, at least in stock markets. Imports were de-licensed. The “commanding heights” hitherto captured by the government were thrown open to private players - telecoms, banking, airlines, insurance, media etc.
Interest rates were decontrolled. Dr Singh crowned that breath-taking sweep of reforms with the Victor Hugo quote in his budget speech - “no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”. ADVER.
