Legacy of Dr. Manmohan Singh

Former Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh will be remembered for many things that changed the national dynamics of India. The best tribute that can be termed as apt to describe the contribution of Dr. Singh to India has come from Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister(EAC-PM). He is correct when he says that “the most significant years of the twentieth century for India were 1947 and 1991-one brought political freedom and the other economic freedom. Dr.Manmohan Singh will always be remembered for announcing the Great Liberalisation.” Indeed what Dr.Manmohan Singh initiated was nothing short of second freedom for India when the nation was witnessing an unprecedented economic crisis and redefined the trajectory of India as a global power in the decades to come. His statement during his 1991 budget speech became a signature of the Indian rise when he said in the Parliament “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” One thing has to be borne in mind that the reversal of the Indian economic devastation was possible because the leadership at the helm of affairs had the confidence and conviction in the originality of the ideas in terms of policy making and for this credit goes to the former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao who selected Dr.Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister at a time when there was no light visible at the end of the tunnel. His faith in Dr.Singh did a miracle and India bounced back, rest is history. Economist Gita Gopinath who is Deputy Director with the IMF has rightly stated that the economic reforms introduced by Dr.Manmohan Singh has inspired a new generation of young economists like her. Paying rich tributes to the former Prime Minister of India, she has written on a social media post on X that “Dr. Manmohan Singh’s 1991 budget unshackled India’s economy, significantly enhancing the economic prospects for hundreds of millions of Indians. His visionary reforms inspired countless young economists like me.”He contributed in various spheres of national life that included being an academician and taught economics at the Panjab University and ultimately taught at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He held important positions like the governor of the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) and then the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, to name a few. During his Prime Ministership ,the nation witnessed a considerable improvement in ties with the United States of America(USA) and the nuclear deal was materialised. Since then there has been a tremendous improvement in Indo-US ties. Being a victim of the partition and the genocide witnessed by his generation, he could feel the pain of refugees. Dr.Manmohan Singh was born in Gah, Panjab(British India) now in Pakistan on 26th September in 1932.Thus he could internalise the pain and religious cleansing that was inflicted on the people in 1947 as a grown up child. Throughout his tenure as the Prime Minister, human touch towards the refugees could be easily seen in his policies. That is why during his tenure there was a considerable focus on the relief and rehabilitation of the refugees in Jammu and Kashmir that included the 1947 Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) refugees and 1990 Kashmiri Pandit refugees. He initiated rehabilitation policies and the employment schemes for the Kashmiri Pandits and visited the Kashmiri Pandit refugee camps in Jammu giving a personal touch to the relief policies .It infused a sense of confidence in the devastated refugee families. Even to this day refugees of all hues in Jammu and Kashmir feel indebted to Dr.Manmohan Singh was internalising their pain and agony. Dr.Manmohan Singh will always be remembered for his honesty, integrity, scholarship and sensitivity towards humanitarian issues. His legacy will surely guide the nation to solve many complex issues. There is indeed a lot to learn from the policy initiatives of the former technocrat Prime Minister. If the refugee problem in Jammu and Kashmir emerged due to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is to be solved then Dr.Manmohan Singh’s approach has to be adopted. It will enable the initiation of confidence building measures for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandit refugees in near future.