Singh Has Kept a Great Legacy Behind

Without the political support, he could not have done that (1991 reforms), but it was a very insightful, forward-looking, visionary change of our economic regulatory system

- Sudipto Mundle

I first met Dr Manmohan Singh when he was teaching us in 1971. I was a student at the Delhi School of Economics and he was teaching us trade theory, which was, incidentally, also the subject of his PhD thesis in Oxford University. At Oxford, he had originally outlined the thesis of undue pessimism about foreign trade in India and export pessimism, which had accounted for our very autocratic kind of trade regime. He already had thought differently. He didn't stay very long to teach us and left soon to become economic advisor in the commerce ministry. That was the beginning of his long career in the government to very distinguished positions before finally becoming the prime minister.