Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Known as Father of Economic Reforms, Dies at 92
- The soft-spoken Oxford-educated economist with his trademark powder-blue turban, who was once lauded as erudite and decisive, was later criticized as weak and ineffective.
Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program, died today (Dec. 26) at a hospital in New Delhi. He was 92. He is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur and their three daughters — Upinder Singh, Daman Singh and Amrit Singh. Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences earlier that day after his health deteriorated due to a “sudden loss of consciousness at home,” the hospital said in a statement.
Singh became one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers for 10 years and leader of the Congress Party in the Parliament’s Upper House, earning a reputation as a man of great personal integrity. He was chosen to fill the role in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi. He is the first Indian prime minister from the Sikh minority. But the soft-spoken Oxford-educated economist with his trademark powder-blue turban, became “a household name” as finance minister in the 1990s, NPR said it its obit, when he “promoted India’s economic liberalization” by quoting Victor Hugo: “No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”
In his memoir “A Promised Land,” former president Barack Obama described Singh as “wise, thoughtful, and scrupulously honest.” Singh, who had “engineered the modernization of his nation’s economy is “a gentle, soft-spoken economist in his seventies, with a white beard and a turban,” Obama wrote. Although the turban and beard were “the marks of his Sikh faith but to the Western eye lent him the air of a holy man,” he continued.
Obama poignantly describes a private moment he spent with the Prime Minister during his visit to India in November 2010, where Singh gently hints at the coming storm of right-wing nationalism. “Our first evening in Delhi, he and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, hosted a dinner party for me and Michelle at their residence, and before joining the other guests in a candlelit courtyard, Singh and I had a few minutes to chat alone. Without the usual flock of minders and notetakers hovering over our shoulders, the prime minister spoke more openly about the clouds he saw on the horizon,” the President writes. “In uncertain times, Mr. President,” Obama recalls Singh as saying, “the call of religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating. And it’s not so hard for politicians to exploit that, in India or anywhere else.”
“India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. “Rising from humble origins, he rose to become a respected economist. … As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives.”
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in a post on X, noted how Singh “led India with immense wisdom and integrity. I have lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride.”
I pay my deepest respects to Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh ji on his passing. A leader who dedicated his life to serving the nation, he will always be remembered for his wisdom and invaluable contributions to India’s economic growth.
— Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) December 26, 2024
It was an honor to have worked… pic.twitter.com/LkanaXiny0
Singh was born on Sept. 26, 1932, in the village of Gah, which is now in Pakistan. His mother, Amrit Kaur, died in his childhood, and he was raised by the family of his father, Gurmuk Singh. He studied at Hindu College and Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, and went on to St. John’s College at Cambridge in 1957. In 1960 he started a doctoral thesis at Nuffield College, Oxford, that explored India’s export performance in the 1950s.
After a stint with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Singh taught international trade at the University of New Delhi. His career in public policy began in 1972 as chief economic adviser in the Finance Ministry. He became governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1982. In June 1991 he was appointed finance minister by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who took office after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi as India seemed on the verge of economic collapse. “Singh’s appointment was regarded as an unconventional choice,” The New York Times notes. “ His policies broke from the mold in a country with a centralized economy, permitting a degree of deregulation and opening India up to foreign investment,” The Times said in its obit.
Singh served as prime minister between 2004 and 2014. “His arrival as a technocrat prime minister in 2004 was seen by many Indians as a break with entrenched corruption among the political and business classes,” The Times said. His policies during that period set India on the path of economic liberalization and globalization.
Under his leadership, India became a founding member in 2009 of the so-called BRICS group: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which joined in 2010. The founding of the group was widely seen as a display of emergent economic muscle. During that time, India also signed a deal with Washington that ended a moratorium on nuclear trade; improved its relations with Israel and China; and supported the government of Afghanistan with financial aid, enhancing India’s regional standing.
When he first came to office in 2004, Singh “seemed bent on resolving the festering dispute over Kashmir,” according to The Times. But despite the possibility of a deal between India and Pakistan, it never materialized.
After the Indian National Congress emerged victorious in May 2009, many of Singh’s critics “ascribed the victory in large part to Sonia Gandhi’s Gandhi’s dominant role in the political maneuverings that underpinned his premiership,” The Times said. “He was ridiculed by his critics as weak and ineffective as India’s growth had eased, rural poverty persisted and the country faced newer challenges,” the publication continued. Singh announced his resignation before the 2014 elections.