I first met the man who changed India’s destiny weeks before he delivered the most historic address, which I would reckon to be as impactful as Pandit Nehru’s August 14, 2047, speech. Nehru then said, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”
Dr Singh, while concluding his historic July 24, 1991 budget speech, quoted famous novelist Victor Hugo, saying “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”.
He ended the speech by borrowing the iconic line from renowned poet Girija Kumar Mathur’s composition “Hum Honge Kaamyab”.
“I do not minimise the difficulties that lie ahead on the long and arduous journey on which we have embarked. But as Victor Hugo once said, ‘No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come’. 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. Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome”.
As a young reporter working on India’s fleet street (BSZ Marg) with The Economic Times, I met Dr Manmohan Singh in his office situated just across the road. His remit as the UGC Chairman (March – June 1991) was brief but his passion for a new education framework was manifest during the brief interaction.
What struck me most was his unrivalled humility. But as he spoke (very mildly), the teacher in him came up prominently. He stood up as I was leaving the room. I was bowled over.
I had no idea whatsoever that in a few months the famous technocrat would be assigned to script history. Dr Singh, as India’s finance minister, went where no one had dared to go thus far.
He opened up the Indian economy enabling it to stand on its own feet while integrating it with the world at large. He withstood opposition from the ‘Bombay Club’ to fathom a new innings for India Inc laying the seeds for Indian companies to aim for the big world stage.
As the nation mourns his demise, it is time to celebrate his scholarship as much as his humility. Understated to the core, Dr Singh rose the ranks to be India’s first economist Prime Minister. In gaining unprecedented recognition for his tenure as the Finance Minister, his rise to the highest office in the country set expectations soaring.
In his role as the finance minister, he acted like a surgeon with precision and perfection. But then he was under the political mentorship of the then Prime Minister, P V Narasimha Rao. Rao displayed unusual political will to fully back the economist who he put in charge. Mind you, PVN was heading a coalition government.
As Prime Minister, Dr Singh showed remarkable agility when he steered the nuclear deal amidst deep opposition. Sorely, that was an exception rather than the rule.
Rao enhanced Singh’s profile (for which he never got due credit) but as PM he was dwarfed by his political masters who governed by the remote. That he chose to stay on became his undoing while the original middle class hero could ideally have made the biggest ever political statement had he actually resigned when Rahul Gandhi tore his ordinance at a staged Press Club event.
In the lives of extraordinary people, there are obvious blemishes as well. Dr Singh was an extraordinary academic, technocrat, who would be above all known for his civility. He reimagined civility as a key component of his long and outstanding career. Power and arrogance go hand in hand and civility is a rare virtue today.
Dr Singh reimagined the intersection of politics and business. As a reformer at heart, he championed the cause of the poor but never ever displayed any doubt on the role and importance of corporate India. That is something Congress today must listen to.
Someone might argue that he was a socialist but to my mind he was the biggest proponent of market play. Yes, he had a disinterest in the stock markets, and his famous quote that he didn’t lose sleep over the markets. Markets weren’t kind either to him as they crashed when he took charge in 2004 as the country’s first Sikh Prime Minister.
As a student of management, one wonders whether Dr Singh longevity owes it to his penchant for anonymity? As Barack Obama once said, when the Guru (speaking of Dr Singh) speaks, the world listens. Indeed Dr Singh would go down as among the most remarkable policy leaders originating as technocrats.
If only Dr Singh had spoken and acted like the finance minister when he was the Prime Minister? A question many like me are crossed with. Today and tomorrow!
But then he played perfectly as per the script. History would definitely remember him, respect him and revere him not just for that one innings which crafted the India 2.0 story early nineties. More than anything else, civility will be his enduring legacy.
