Dr Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India breathed his last on the 26th of December 2024 at the age of 92. Born on 26th September 1932 in Gah village in Pakistan in the then British India, Dr Singh served as the Prime Minister for two consecutive terms from 22nd May 2004 to 26th May 2014. The quiet and humble statesman played a key role as the Finance Minister in the Narasimha Rao government in navigating India out of the economic crisis in the 1990s. With policies centred around liberalisation, Dr Singh efficiently played his part in bringing India from the brink of economic collapse to unprecedented reforms and transformation.
In 1991, India faced a severe balance of payments crisis, with a high fiscal deficit, increasing external debt, and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. To tackle this crisis, the Chandra Shekhar-led minority government decided to pledge a portion of India’s gold reserves, around 47 tonnes, as collateral for foreign exchange borrowing. This arrangement provided immediate relief to India’s foreign exchange problem, allowing the country to continue importing necessary items and performing fundamental economic tasks. However, pledging gold was a moment of international humiliation and emotional trauma for the country.
Riding on the sympathy wave following former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the Congress party came to power under the leadership of PV Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh became the Finance Minister of India.
In his first budget speech in 1991, Dr Singh had said that “no power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come”, and with trade liberalisation, devaluing the currency, reducing import tariffs and privatising state-owned companies to several other economic reforms, Dr Singh pulled India back from the brink of economic collapse to the path of economic growth though not without the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In fact, it was the IMF which recommended deregulation, increased foreign direct investment, trade liberalisation, tax reform, financial sector reforms, public enterprise reform etc. These economic reforms implemented under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao and FM Dr Manmohan Singh had a massive impact on the Indian economy coming on track, increased literacy and life expectancy rates, decreased infant mortality rate and much more.
When Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh wanted to allocate Rs 100 crore to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation
While Dr Manmohan Singh was a man of impeccable character and was a polite, scholarly gentleman, his time as the Prime Minister of India will be remembered for massive governance failures, corruption scandals and an opprobrious erosion of democratic ideals. Besides the quiet and gentlemanly demeanour, Dr Singh was also known for his loyalty and closeness with the Gandhi family, so much so that during his tenure as the Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh had tried to allocate a sum of Rs 100 crores from the Union Budget to the Sonia Gandhi-headed Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, to be donated over a period of five years, and it was stalled only after a huge uproar. In addition, the Union Budget was to also keep aside another Rs 250 crores if the 100 crores were not enough. Back then the Janata Dal MP Chandra Jeet Yadav had questioned Dr Singh if he was on behalf of the cabinet as the finance minister of the country or if he is representing the Congress royal family.
Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister of India and the media
When the incumbent Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government faced surprising defeat in 2004, it was expected that Sonia Gandhi would lead the UPA-led government, however, Gandhi chose Dr Singh to lead the country.
In the current political landscape, a section of the mainstream media is labelled as “Godi media” and accused of being supportive of the Modi government. It is claimed by the anti-BJP political parties, including Congress, that media enjoyed journalistic freedom when Manmohan Singh was PM, the media during the UPA era was the actual definition of what “Godi media” is.
During Manmohan Singh”s tenure as the Prime Minister, NDTV had to pull a story which could have shown the UPA government in a bad light. A former journalist with NDTV, Samarendra Singh had revealed how back in 2005, a year after Dr Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister, he was forced to pull down an NDTV story which was based on ‘report card’ of the ministers of the UPA. The incident has also been discussed in Sanjaya Baru’s book ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, where it has been clearly stated that how Prannoy Roy, the promoter of the NDTV was schooled by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for doing a story on evaluating the performance of few cabinet ministers who had received a negative review.
In May 2005, NDTV ran a story that Minister of External Affairs, Natwar Singh, a Gandhi Parivar loyalist had secured a ‘low score’ on the PM’s report card and was likely to be dropped from the cabinet. This, however, reportedly enraged Manmohan Singh who then rebuked Prannoy Roy and made sure that the story was dropped.
In another incident revealing the truth of PM Singh’s supposed ‘media-friendly’ approach, journalist Arnab Goswami was stopped by the PMO officials from questioning. It must also not be forgotten how the Manmohan Singh-led government had allowed lobbyists to play a larger role during the selection of cabinet ministers during the UPA government, as opposed to the present government who has ignored and shown the door to several journalists-lobbyists of the Congress era.
Not to forget the infamous Radia Tapes case, one of the many blots on the UPA government, this case acquainted the people of India with how the narrative is set, Cabinet berths negotiated, the disgraceful nexus between journalists and politicians, and the political impunity to brush aside the scandal. It also emerged that several ‘Congress-friendly’ journalists were writing paid articles and lobbying for the UPA government. Interestingly, it was reported in 2014 that the government spent Rs 2048 crores in just three years for publicity.
Back in 2012, Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan brought a private members bill that sought to ‘regulate’ the media. This bill aimed at empowering the government to ban coverage of events that it deemed a ‘threat’ to national security. In addition, the bill sought to lay down certain ‘standards’ for media to follow. A year before, the then communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal sought to ‘regulate’ the social media. The UPA II was particularly hostile to the section of media that diligently reported on the slew of scams unearthed one after the other exposing the rampant corruption. On one hand, the voice of the section of the media not genuflecting before the Congress government was being muzzled, on the other, the politician-corporate nexus grew and affected the media as well.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his numerous foreign visits as prime minister, took several journalists along repeatedly. Some of the journalists accompanied PM Singh over 20 times. However, this ‘junket tradition’ was discontinued by Narendra Modi when he assumed office in 2014.
The UPA era of policy paralysis
The PM Manmohan Singh government, particularly the second tenure was marred by policy paralysis with much-need reforms stalling and economic growth decelerating. This policy paralysis brought India’s GDP down to its slowest 4.6% rate for that decade. Take Goods and Services (GST) as an example. Although GST was originally conceptualised by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Congress government despite wanting to bring a GST bill, delayed its implementation due to indecisiveness over how it should be structured leading to India missing out the early benefits from what could have been a landmark tax reform. This inordinate delay caused a Rs 12 lakh crore loss to the country, as Congress leader Veerappa Moily once said.
It was only after, Narendra Modi-led NDA came to power that GST was rolled out in July 2017.
Despite the need for vital banking reforms, particularly following the 2008 global financial crisis, there has been an apparent lack of progress. The Manmohan Singh-led government was chastised for failing to effectively address the mounting Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), which eventually became an enormous financial burden. Moreover, the Environment, Finance, and Petroleum ministries were often found grappling with internal policy disagreements contributing to stagnation in decision-making.
Recently, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan shed light on the alarming situation that prevailed back then and said that land approvals, environmental clearance processes etc became major bottlenecks for key projects. “Projects weren’t getting land, environmental permissions, etc. So, they were building NPAs in the financial system, which is typical after a period of exuberance, euphoria…Once the crisis hit, project timelines stretched significantly. During my predecessor’s tenure, the RBI implemented a policy allowing a moratorium on declaring loans as non-performing. However, this resulted in banks holding onto large chunks of bad loans without recognising them,” Rajan said.
As per a 2014 IndiaToday report, “the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) reveal that as many as 301 central sector projects, each involving an investment of more than Rs 150 crore, have been delayed resulting in cost overruns to the tune of a whopping Rs 1.74 lakh crore.”
The PM Manmohan Singh-led government also crumbled under the pressure of “Coalition Dharma. As the UPA government was a coalition, the burden to keep allies satisfied often culminated in policy compromises or delays. This decision-making paralysis was seen in the Congress-led government’s handling of the telecom industry, which resulted in the 2G spectrum scam causing a presumed loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore, wherein Telecom Minister A Raja was one of the accused . It was seen how political survival took precedence over strategic governance.
Evidently, the UPA government was out of touch with the rapid reforms needed for India’s economic and social growth, leaving a legacy where political expediency and bureaucratic inertia overshadowed potential landmark reforms.
The legacy of unchecked corruption
One of the biggest reasons behind mounting public anger against the UPA II government was rampant corruption and unearthing of bigger scams one after the other alongside inflation. PM Singh’s tenure was marred by several high-profile corruption scandals, including the 2G spectrum case wherein under-pricing of 2G spectrum licenses led to a presumed loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer, the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam worth Rs 70,000 crore wherein mismanagement and corruption in the organisation of the sporting tournament through inflated costs, shoddy construction, kickbacks and funds misuse, AgustaWestland chopper scam involving Rs 3600 crore, Tata trucks scam resulting in the siphoning of Rs 750 crores of government funds, cash-for-votes scam, Adarsh scam, Satyam scam and the coal allocation scam among others.
While Congress today presents cataclysmic measures like caste-based wealth redistribution and accuses the Modi government of being hand in gloves with those it calls ‘crony capitalists’, the UPA era probably witnessed more scams than major policies it rolled out. Congress talks about defending democracy and constitution, however, the alleged cash-for-votes scam, wherein BJP MPs were allegedly offered bribes to support Congress in a key no-confidence vote in July 2008, stands out as a stark example of how the influence of money power undermined the very essence of parliamentary democracy. Later that year, a parliamentary committee handed clean chit to the accused leaders citing ‘lack of evidence’.
Misuse of federal probe agencies to keep political adversaries in check
When out of power at the Centre since 2014, Congress claims that the democratic institutions and probe agencies are being misused by the Modi government against opposition parties, however, it was the UPA government that reduced the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to a “caged parrot”, as the Supreme Court said back in September 2013 during one of the hearings pertaining to the Coal Scam. Years later, a special CBI court sentenced a three-year jail term to HC Gupta, who served as the Union Coal secretary in Manmohan Singh-led government.
Not to forget, how the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and cabinet minister Amit Shah were hounded for years by the ruling Congress governments through the CBI in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. It was eventually observed by the CBI court that a larger conspiracy was hatched by the CBI under the then Congress government to implicate political opponents.
Incidentally, back in 2010, Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Gita Johri filed a plea in the Supreme Court alleging that she was being pressured by the CBI to implicate BJP’s Amit Shah and some other political leaders in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case.
The CBI allegedly pressured former TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal to incriminate industrialist Ratan Tata and former Cabinet minister Arun Shourie in the 2G scam case.
Similarly, retired IB officer Rajinder Kumar to accuse then-Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the Ishrat Jahan encounter.
In another such incident, Satish Verma, the SIT chief, allegedly tortured former Under Secretary R.V.S. Mani in order to accuse a senior IB official in the Ishrat Jahan case. The Congress government is also accused of trying to erase Jahan’s links to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Then IPS Sanjiv Bhatt tried to falsely implicate Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat Riots case around the same time. The email exchanges showed that Bhatt was in touch with the then Gujarat leader of opposition Shaktisinh Gohil, FCRA violation accused Teesta Setalvad among others.
Attacks on political opponents, soft on terrorism
While the Congress party used all the “Saam, daam, dand, bhed” against its political adversaries, it was quite soft on Pakistani state-sponsored Islamic terrorism, so much so that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ended up legitimising Pakistan’s India interference in Balochistan allegation in a joint statement with his Pakistani counterpart in Sharm el-Sheikh. Back in 2009, then PM Singh and his Pakistan counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani, met during a meeting in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh. Here, PM Singh agreed to make a mention of Balochistan. “Prime Minister Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. Prime Minister Gilani assured that Pakistan will do everything in its power in this regard….Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas,” the 2009 joint statement reads.
This was in sharp contrast to India’s usual stand on Balochistan-related issues. Earlier, India refrained from making any reference in joint statements since India has strongly denied any involvement in Balochistan liberation resistance. Instead of snubbing Pakistan for providing a safe haven to Mumbai 26/11 attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed and his Islamist terrorist organisation, PM Singh ended up allowing Pakistan to accuse India of fomenting insurgency in Balochistan. Pakistan managed to make India acknowledge its ‘involvement’ in Balochistan. PM Singh’s faux pas altered the Balochistan issue from a bleeding wound into one caused by alleged Indian meddling.
To this day, it remains unclear as to what made PM Singh take a sudden shift from India’s stand, and inadvertently give clean chit to India’s perennially hostile neighbour.
On 26th November 2008, Ajmal Kasab and 9 other Pakistani Jihadis entered Mumbai via sea route, and attacked various locations in the southern part of the city, including Nariman House, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Leopold Cafe, and grand hotels like Taj Palace and Trident leaving 166 innocent people dead and over 300 injured. And the Manmohan Singh government did what it deemed best to do. Nothing!
Despite a disastrous handling of the 26/11 attacks, PM Singh somehow found it appropriate to congratulate himself for doing nothing and even sought votes on the basis of it in the 2009 elections.
While the Modi government discontinued any bilateral talks with Pakistan, and approved surgical strikes and airstrikes in response to Pakistani aggression, PM Singh continued to do nothing even when his party leaders were politicising the Mumbai attacks and toeing the narrative of Pakistan that it wasn’t involved in the attack. Not to forget, then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had even declared RSS-BJP terror groups and Congress leader Digvijay Singh attended the launch of a propaganda book by Aziz Burney accusing RSS of carrying out Mumbai attacks. While the author of the contentious book later apologised to RSS, Digvijay Singh never cared to issue an apology and neither did PM Singh find it necessary to throw Digvijay Singh out of Congress or even rebuke him.
Congress government’s bonhomie with Kashmiri terrorists like Yasin Malik who killed IAF officers and was actively involved in propagation of separatist ideology, is also quite widely known. Malik was invited to a meeting in 2006 by then-prime minister Manmohan Singh at his official home in New Delhi. As part of his outreach campaign with the political leaders, separatists and other parties in Jammu and Kashmir, the prime minister also had important conversations with Yasin Malik. His viral photographs with the terrorist as the two smile joyfully emerged as one of the most harrowing images of the recent past, especially for the people whose lives were ruined by the latter.
Was Manmohan Singh just a rubber stamp
Like it or not, Sonia Gandhi was the de-facto leader of the UPA coalition. One does not need to rely on BJP’s allegations to authenticate this. In the book “Accidental Prime Minister — The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh’ by Sanjay Baru, who was the media advisor of then PM, some shocking revelations were made in this regard.
Baru wrote in the book that through bureaucrat Pulok Chatterjee, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, then-Congress President Sonia Gandhi was “privy to the files to be cleared by the PM.” He noted, “[Chaterjee] had regular, almost daily meetings with Sonia at which he was said to brief her on the key policy issues of the day and seek her instructions on the important files to be cleared by the PM.”
Baru further said in his book that in Singh’s first cabinet, no one felt they owed their position or portfolio to the then-PM. At the same time, the Congress spokespersons did their best to project Sonia Gandhi as the “boss.” Baru added, “He would always be tormented by the question of whether he was his own man or Sonia’s puppet.”
He also said that Sonia Gandhi deliberately gave the finance portfolio to Pranab Mukherjee after UPA won a second term, even though Singh wanted to give finance ministry to his principal economic advisor C Rangrajan. PM Singh was also against induction of 2G scam accused A Raja in the central cabinet, however, Congress and DMK’s pressure overpowered his will.
It would not be wrong to say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tenure was actually a decade of Sonia Gandhi’s time of enjoying power without accountability. There was a National Advisory Council headed by none other than Sonia Gandhi. This NAC acted much like a de facto PMO during the UPA era. Notably, Sonia Gandhi had established the NAC on 4th June 2004, days after her ‘inner voice’ asked her to step aside and not become India’s Prime Minister. The NAC files made public in 2017 revealed that this Council headed by Sonia Gandhi used to take the final call on policy decisions instead of its role of advising and former PM Manmohan Singh carried out the instructions sent by the NAC. OpIndia’s detailed report on how Sonia Gandhi communicated her ‘recommendations’ to the UPA government and how ‘recommendations’ were not only accepted but effectively implemented can be read here.
While Dr Manmohan Singh will be remembered for his exceptional role in the economic reforms in the early 1990s as the Finance Minister and his graceful demeanour, his tenure as Prime Minister will be remembered for massive misgovernance, wherein corruption was rampant and the machinery of democracy was manipulated as per convenience. The UPA era will serve as a cautionary tale for Yes, History will be kinder to MMS, but only as a person not actively in control under whose watch such crimes happened. History will be kinder to the person, not to the times, the legacy.
