A truly great son of India

DR SINGH'S APPROACH WAS SUPREMELY EFFECTIVE IN CREATING SPACE FOR EXCHANGE OF VIEWS

- RAGHURAM RAJAN

I CAME TO know Dr Manmohan Singh during his first term as Prime Minister when he, on the advice of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, appointed me as an economic advisor. Over the years since then, through my term as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor and after, I had the privilege of interacting with him periodically.

Dr Singh was a brilliant economist with an ambitious vision of what a liberal India could be, combined with a fine sense of what was possible politically. He was understated and soft-spoken, which allowed him to attract the best and the brightest, ranging from Ahluwalia to C Rangarajan, to his team. The liberalization and reforms he undertook with the support of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao laid the foundations of the modern Indian economy, and spurred the decades of robust growth we still enjoy.

In his terms as Prime Minister, Dr Singh's ability to reform the economy further was somewhat hampered, first by coalition politics and then by opposition non-cooperation. Nevertheless, his government passed landmark legislation like the National Food Security Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, targeted at segments of Indian society that are often overlooked. He also sought to strengthen Indian institutions and apply checks and balances on the government. The Right to Information Act stands out as one of the few pieces of legislation where the Indian government has subjected itself to greater scrutiny. And some of the reforms his government contemplated but could not enact, such as the goods and services tax, were enacted by the subsequent National Democratic Alliance government.