Manmohan Singh

Summary: Manmohan Singh, a renowned academic economist and former Indian finance minister credited with jump-starting India's economy in the early 1990s, first became prime minister in 2004 and served in that position until 2014. He was the first Sikh to head the government in Hindu-dominated India. India's emergence as a fast-growing economic power in Asia was widely credited to Singh. He was also responsible for negotiating an agreement with the United States that recognized India's role as a nuclear power, ending decades of isolation on this issue due to Delhi's refusal to honor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf also credited Singh for improving relations with Pakistan—relations since strained by a terrorist attack on Mumbai, India, in 2008. The Pakistani group implicated in the violence, Lashkar-e-Toiba, reputedly received support from Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. Singh was the guest of honor at President Barack Obama's first state dinner in 2009, a symbol of the growing importance of the US relationship with India. This move showed America's desire for India to serve as a counterweight to the emergence of China in the region. Singh served as the Prime Minister of India from 2004-2014. In addition, he was a long-time member of India's Upper House of Parliament (the Rajya Sabha). He began serving in 1998 and remained until his retirement in April 2024.

Born: September 26, 1932, Punjab province (then part of British-ruled India).

Nationality: Indian.

Education: Panjab University, 1948; Master's degree, Cambridge University (England); PhD, Nuffield College, Oxford.

Religion: Sikh.

Position, Title, or Affiliation: Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

Activities

• 1970s: Economic adviser to various Indian prime ministers.
• 1971–91: Economic adviser, Commerce Ministry, first of several appointments in governments of the Congress Party in ministries responsible for economic policy. Other posts included chief economic adviser in the Finance Ministry, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, and governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
• 1991: Elected to the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), one of two houses of India's parliament.
• 1991–6: Finance minister; widely credited with economic reforms that sparked rapid economic growth.
• 1998–2004: Leader of the opposition in the upper house of parliament, where members are chosen by the assemblies of India's states.
• 1999: Ran for a seat in the lower house of parliament but lost.
• 2004: Named prime minister when a coalition led by National Congress Party regained parliamentary majority.
• 2004-2014: tenure as prime minister of India.
• 2016: Professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Chair at Panjab University.
• 2024: Retirement from Parliament

Last known status: In the 2009 parliamentary elections, the coalition led by the National Congress Party retained its majority, and Singh remained as prime minister. In 2010, a series of scandals involving members of Singh's government—but not Singh himself—generated criticism that Singh had failed to act decisively to end corruption in his administration. In September 2010, Singh's government responded to rioting by Muslims in the province of Kashmir with military force, only to concede that the hard-line approach had failed after about 100 civilians were killed over 100 days. In early 2014, Singh, now eighty-one years old, announced he would still be stepping down as prime minister. The Bharatiya Janata Party ultimately secured the majority, making Narendra Modi India's new prime minister; Singh had not supported Modi, claiming that his policies would only harm the country.

Manmohan Singh was an academic economist, a long-time technocrat in India's ministries of commerce and finance, and a former head of India's central bank. As finance minister, he was widely credited with implementing reforms in 1991–1996 that set the stage for rapid economic growth. He became Indian prime minister in 2004, having served since 1998. His ascension to this office happened as the opposition leader of the Rajya Sabha (Council of States); the leader of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, turned down the position. Singh remained in office following the elections in 2009—still never having won a popular election. At the start of his second term as prime minister on May 22, 2009, Singh was seventy-six years old. He had just returned from a six-week break following heart bypass surgery.

Singh was the first Sikh to lead India in a region long divided between Muslims and Hindus after post–World War II independence from British rule. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that originated in the Punjab region in the fifteenth century. Among other issues, followers of Sikhism living in the Indian state of Kashmir reported threats from militant Muslims demanding either their conversion to Islam or their departure. As the majority of the population in Kashmir are Muslims, many Hindus were forced to flee in the face of Islamist extremists during the 1990s.

Because he never won a popular election—he lost his only bid to the lower house of parliament in 1999—Singh has kept a relatively low profile in Indian politics. He deferred to the leaders of the Congress Party, particularly its leader Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of an assassinated prime minister. At the same time, Singh has maintained a reputation for avoiding the corruption that reputedly runs rampant through the governments of India—a reputation that has contributed to his popularity.

In 2016, following his tenure as prime minister, Singh was invited to serve as chair professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Chair at Panjab University. He also continued to critique policy decisions made by the new government. After his departure as prime minister, Singh continued to participate in politics. He represented the states of Assam (1991-2019) and Rajasthan (2019-2024) in the Indian Parliament. In April 2024, he retired from Parliament.

Economic Reforms. Upon becoming finance minister in 1991, Singh faced a balance of payments crisis and possible economic collapse. He avoided both and pushed through reforms that included lowering taxes, devaluing the rupee, privatizing state-run industries, encouraging foreign investments, and providing debt relief for impoverished farmers. His goal was to promote business innovation and growth in a "mixed economy" where the government maintained an important role, including publicly owned companies, building infrastructure, and involvement in agriculture. Following a period (1998–2004) in which the Congress Party lost its majority to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Singh became prime minister and returned to his economic program. As a result of these reforms, parts of India's economy grew rapidly, especially in areas of technology, making it a rival to neighboring China, even though the benefits of the expansion left many poor farmers untouched, reflected in a persistent rural insurgency by left-wing groups fighting under the banner of Naxalites in India's so-called "Red Belt" states in the east.

Pakistan. While Singh is typically associated with India's economy, his terms as prime minister also coincided with cyclical tensions with Pakistan. These disputes were habitually over the half-century-long dispute over the status of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. More recent concerns included India's perceived growing influence in Afghanistan. In December 2010, Pakistan's former president, Pervez Musharraf, told an interviewer that Indian-Pakistani relations had made "significant progress" while Singh was prime minister. Musharraf cited three specific disputes: Kashmir, the standoff at the high-altitude Siachen glacier (20,000 feet) in Kashmir, and the dispute over Sir Creek, a route to the sea running between Pakistan's Sindh province and India's Gujarat state. Musharraf contrasted relations while Singh was prime minister to the preceding period under Singh's predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee (prime minister 1998–2004).

Nonetheless, Singh angrily blamed the Pakistani Islamist terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba for launching the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai over a two-and-a-half-day period in November 2008. The attacks left 170 people dead. India repeatedly presented its evidence of the involvement by Lashkar-e-Toiba and its founder-leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Indian resentments surfaced when Pakistan declined to prosecute Saeed.

Relations with the United States. In 2009, Singh was the guest of honor at newly inaugurated President Barack Obama's first state dinner. This was a symbol of India's steadily improving relations with the United States following decades of left-of-center Cold War neutrality. During this time, Pakistan was a leading ally of America. In 2008, the US Senate approved a non-proliferation treaty, first announced three years earlier, between the United States and India. This lifted a decades-long embargo of trade in nuclear goods—such as sales of American nuclear reactors to generate power. This opened the way for American aid and technology sales to India. The embargo had been imposed when India detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1974, having earlier refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970. American repercussions were not made against Pakistan, which developed nuclear weapons in response to India. This represented another complication in the already-strained relations between the United States and Pakistan. The symbolism of President Obama's first state dinner and a later state visit to India underscored a source of tension on the subcontinent. The seemingly cordial relations between Washington and Delhi occurred during a time when the United States relied on Pakistan as an ally in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Naxalites. In 2006, Singh declared that an insurgency by left-wing guerrillas in eastern India called the Naxalites, was India's "single biggest internal security challenge." Naxalites is a generic term used for Maoist-inspired rebel groups in India that have waged a guerilla war for over forty years. These hostilities have occurred across a broad swath of eastern India and involved twenty of India's twenty-nine states. For the next three years, Singh's government was responsible for defending state governments against Naxalites. This was despite the wide disparities in the state's ability—and willingness—to do so. In 2009, 998 deaths were attributed to the Naxalite conflict. Singh's government launched an anti-guerrilla campaign called Operation Green Hunt. The centerpiece of this operation was the deployment of 70,000 police into the "Red Corridor" to confront the guerrillas and to push the Naxalites into more remote forested areas. The offensive continued into 2010 despite notable setbacks and successes by the rebels.

Biography. Singh received a doctorate in economics from Oxford and later taught at both Panjab University and the Delhi School of Economics. He has received many awards, including the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award (1987), and the Adam Smith Prize (Cambridge University, 1956).

Despite his long career in government, Singh stood for election only once in losing parliamentary elections in 1999. This likely contributed to his relatively low profile in India compared to more colorful politicians. He was, nevertheless, widely popular when his Congress Party gained 57 seats in parliament in 2009.

Singh was born in 1932 in Punjab, then part of British India. He is married (since 1958) and has three daughters.

Bibliography

Burke, Jason. "India's Manmohan Singh to Step Down as PM." The Guardian, 3 Jan. 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/india-manmohan-singh-rahul-gandhi-narendra-modi. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.

"Dr. Manmohan Singh." Prime Minister's Office, www.pmindia.gov.in/en/former‗pm/dr-manmohan-singh-2. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.

Gupta, Swati and Ruchi Bhatia. "Manmohan Singh, Architect of India Reforms, Bows Out of Politics." Bloomberg, 3 Apr. 2024, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-03/manmohan-singh-architect-of-india-reforms-bows-out-of-politics. Accessed 20 June 2024.

"Indian PM Manmohan Singh to Step Down after 2014 Elections." ABC, 3 Jan. 2014, www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-03/an-indian-pm-manmohan-singh-to-step-down-after-2014-elections/5184168. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.

"Modi Is First PM to Lower Dignity of Public Discourse, Gravity of Office: Manmohan Singh." The New Indian Express, 30 May 2024, www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2024/May/30/modi-is-first-pm-to-lower-dignity-of-public-discourse-gravity-of-office-manmohan-singh. Accessed 20 June 2024.

Oloffson, Kristi. "Manmohan Singh, India's Prime Minister." Time, 24 Nov. 2009, content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1942569,00.html. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.

Singh, Manmohan. "Exclusive: Modi Should Know That He Is PM of All of India, Says Manmohan Singh." Interview by Jyoti Malhotra. India Today, 11 Feb. 2016, indiatoday.intoday.in/story/manmohan-singh-narendra-modi-politics-gandhis/1/592973.html. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.