How will history remember Manmohan Singh???

In the past couple of weeks the new government has taken over the country and everybody is hoping for a bright future of the nation, expecting reforms friendly for the nation and its development.  The new PM is all set with his plans for the next 100 days and thereafter. Amidst all these, the Ex-PM of India for past 10 years, Dr. Manmohan Singh walks into sunset with little fusses and noise.

The frustrated congressmen are blaming him and the leader (RaGa) of congress party for their failure in communicating the UPA government’s achievement to the people. Indeed, the man’s humility is remarkable, as at the last meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Manmohan took the responsibility for the government’s failure shielding the mother son duo in the congress party making them to lead the party.

History has assessed many PM’s. While others have been forgotten, some (Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, etc.) had left a large footprint on the nation. How will history remember Manmohan? Will he be remembered as the architect of economic reforms that began in 1991 or as a robot working on the signals getting from 10 Janpath, the residence of Sonia and seat of actual power?

The man, who hails a degree from Cambridge and Oxford, had worked with United Nations, then acted as an advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, then Singh held several key posts in the Government of India, such as Chief Economic Advisor (1972–76), Reserve Bank governor (1982–85) and Planning Commission head (1985–87). In 1991, as India faced a severe economic crisis, newly elected Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao surprisingly inducted the apolitical Singh into his cabinet as Finance Minister. Over the next few years, despite strong opposition, he as a Finance Minister carried out several structural reforms that liberalised India's economy. These measures proved successful in averting the crisis, and enhanced Singh's reputation globally as a leading reform-minded economist.

After UPA’s win in 2004, the first term of Manmohan Singh as a PM had fine moments – Enactment of RTI, INDO-US Nuclear deal, strong economic growth, Rural health Mission, Unique Identification Authority, Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, etc had boosted again the nation’s confidence on Congress and Manmohan.

But during UPA-II, the Manmohan (or Sonia) government failed on few important fronts. The GDP growth, consumer price inflation and the the new rules for FDI in multi-brand retail were so loaded with cumbersome clauses that they have not yielded much investment. Singh started with two years of 8.5% growth and ended with two years of 4.5% growth.  Apart from these, Singh's "UPA II" government faced a number of corruption charges—over the organisation of the Commonwealth Games, the 2G-spectrum allocation and the allocation of coal blocks. This made the nation to vote against him and as thinking of him as a person with a paralysis of decision making.

Well, people are ultimately judged not by their failures but for their career achievements. Manmohan will be remembered as a decent and hardworking man, who had saved India when the Nation was in dire need of Economic reforms and stability. He may be remembered as a man who had tried to work hard for the Nation’s benefit without the greed for chair. 

 

Sources: Wikipedia, Swaminomics, Business India

Prateek Aloni

http://about.me/prateek.aloni