He opened India to the world, and set a platform to sit at the top table of the world | Political Affairs

As Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, Singh broke the country’s long nuclear winter, successfully steered it through the global financial crisis and positioned the country for a new global issue.

An unlikely politician, scholar, soft-spoken academic politician – born in Gah in what is now Pakistan, his family moved to India during partition; he was a student of both Oxford and Cambridge universities – he believed in the importance of the free market and at the same time redefined the role of the welfare state when he became PM.

Under him, the UPA government, in its 10 years at the Centre, introduced the second wave of financial reforms and unveiled a series of welfare measures, breaking the long-standing belief that economic reforms and social welfare cannot go hand in hand.

The economic reforms spearheaded by Singh as Finance Minister, under the watch of PV Narasimha Rao in the 1990s, and the policies implemented by the UPA government under his leadership as the Prime Minister spurred industrial growth, lifting millions out of poverty, flourished. class and a revitalized Indian business.

He oversaw the Indo-US nuclear deal which gave a glimpse of Singh the politician – always underrated.

He put his government on the line, resisted and rejected the Left’s oppressive tactics, but in the end he was able to save the nuclear deal with his government. He showed his party, the opposition and the political party that he knows the art of real politics. Accordingly, he faced many problems in his Cabinet, drag and pressures from the Congress but he was able to continue working. Rahul Gandhi’s 2013 law-breaking antics hurt him and forced him to step down from office but the old man among him accepted the persuasion of his colleagues and continued. She later told the Indian Express that Rahul apologized to her.

The first Sikh to become Prime Minister, and the first Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to be reinstated after a full term. But his second term as Prime Minister was marred by controversies and corruption charges against his government, which led to the removal of the Congress from power in 2014. Since then, the group has not been able to sustain itself.

The opposition called him a “weak Prime Minister” but Singh believed in the party’s superiority. The power-sharing model – Singh as Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi as NAC chief and UPA chairperson – led to the belief that he was being looked down upon. “When power was given, authority was not,” said Singh’s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru in his book The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh.

“You see, you have to understand one thing. I have accepted this. There cannot be two centers of power. That creates confusion. I have to accept that the president of the party is the center of management. The government is accountable to the party,” Baru quoted Singh as saying.

Starting his career as an Economic Adviser in the Ministry of International Trade in the early 1970s – later holding several posts including Governor of the RBI, Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission and Chairman of the UGC – Singh’s life and Indian economic studies changed when he took over. as Finance Minister in the Narasimha Rao government in 1991.

Singh was a conformist politician with strong convictions. And he had a rare talent: not to let ego and voice get the best of him, a break with his ilk.

Much admired and much criticized, Singh, a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament for six years, has used a mixture of conviction and wit throughout his political career, sometimes surprising and often disarming and confounding peers, friends and rivals who often underestimate political wisdom.

When the Leftists made life difficult for him, Singh did not budge. He engaged in negotiations but kept the nuclear deal alive. And when the time came, he delivered a tough message to Prakash Karat and company – that India cannot renegotiate the deal and if it wants to withdraw support from its government, it can.

He then won the support of the Samajwadi Party in a crucial trust vote in July 2008 and turned the tables on the opposition.

But Singh, whom former US President Barack Obama described as a man of “extraordinary intelligence and modesty”, was not usually ready for confrontation.

But he was firm in his convictions at times – his desire to push through the controversial nuclear deal or to seek office at any cost, for example, surprised many even in the Congress – and able to persuade or instead accept the party’s diktat (read Sonia Gandhi) at times. He didn’t hesitate to be seen playing second fiddle, instead he used it as his strength. It was a rare trait among career politicians. But perhaps it was that skill that helped him navigate the tricky and ugly political landscape. As the Finance Minister, he initiated economic reforms in 1991 but the political face was Narasimha Rao and he faced problems.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha since the AB Vajpayee era, Singh was the Prime Minister’s surprise choice in 2004 when Sonia Gandhi turned down the post after a controversy over her foreign origins. He had contested the Lok Sabha only once during that time, that too, unsuccessfully. He had lost South Delhi in 1999.

Despite a divided party and disaffected allies, Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister is considered a turning point in India’s foreign policy. There has been a gradual departure from the Nehruvian policy of non-alignment as New Delhi builds closer ties with the US on an equal footing.

Singh successfully steered India through the global financial crisis, prompting Obama to later say that “when the Prime Minister speaks, people listen, mainly because of his deep knowledge of economic affairs, and the fact that he understands that as India rises to become a world power, not just the state of the region, that it also has great responsibilities to work with the entire world community on matters of peace and prosperity”.

Despite that, the highlight during the UPA II government was policy paralysis and corruption, which created his image. The BJP often suspected that he was weak and controlled from afar by Gandhi.

But Singh knew his legacy would be assured. “I truly believe that history will be kinder to me than the current media, however, the opposition parties in Parliament. I cannot reveal all the things that happen in the Cabinet of the government. I think, considering the circumstances, and the political pressure of the coalition, I did everything I could do under these circumstances,” he said at the end of his term.