Former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh is widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States, has died. He was 92.
Singh was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to a “sudden loss of consciousness at home”, the hospital said in a statement.
“Resuscitation measures were immediately initiated at home. He was taken to the medical emergency room at 8:06 p.m.,” the hospital said, but “despite all efforts, he could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead at 9:51 p.m.”
Singh was being treated for “age-related medical conditions,” the statement said.
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A mild-mannered technocrat, Singh became one of India’s longest-serving prime ministers and leader of the Congress party in the upper house of parliament for a decade, gaining a reputation as a man of great personal integrity. He was chosen to be filled in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
But his excellent image was tarnished by allegations of corruption against his ministers.
Singh was re-elected in 2009, but his second term as Prime Minister was overshadowed by financial scandals and allegations of corruption over the organization of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. This led to the crushing defeat of the Congress Party in the 2014 national elections by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party led by Narendra Modi.
Singh adopted a low profile after relinquishing the post of Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Modi, who succeeded Singh in 2014, called him one of India’s “most distinguished leaders,” who rose from humble origins and “has left a strong mark on our economic policies over the years.”
“As our Prime Minister, he has made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” Modi said in a post on social platform were visible. “
Rahul Gandhi, from the same party as Singh and the opposition leader in the lower house of India’s parliament, said Singh’s “deep knowledge of economics inspired the nation” and that he “led India with tremendous wisdom and integrity.”
“I have lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride,” Gandhi wrote on X.
The United States offered its condolences, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Singh was “one of the greatest champions of the U.S.-India strategic partnership.”
“We mourn the passing of Dr. Singh and will always remember his dedication to bringing the United States and India closer together,” Blinken said.
Born on September 26, 1932, in a village in the Punjab province of undivided India, Singh’s brilliant academic career took him to the University of Cambridge in Britain, where he earned a degree in economics in 1957. He subsequently obtained his PhD in economics from Nuffield College, Oxford University in 1962.
Singh taught at Panjab University and the prestigious Delhi School of Economics before joining the Indian government in 1971 as an economic advisor in the Ministry of Commerce. In 1982 he became chief economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance. He also served as Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
As finance minister in 1991, Singh introduced reforms that opened up the economy and moved India away from a socialist-patterned economy to a capitalist one, despite a huge balance of payments deficit, thus sidestepping a potential economic crisis.
His awards include the 1987 Padma Vibhushan Award, India’s second highest civilian award; the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award from the Indian Science Congress in 1995; and the Asia Money Award for Finance Minister of the Year in 1993 and 1994.
Singh was a member of India’s House of Lords and was leader of the opposition from 1998 to 2004 before being appointed prime minister. He was the first Sikh to hold the country’s highest post and publicly apologized in Parliament for the 1984 Sikh massacre, in which about 3,000 Sikhs were killed after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards.
Under Singh, India passed a Right to Information Act in 2005 to promote accountability and transparency of government officials and bureaucrats. He was also instrumental in implementing a social security scheme that guaranteed at least 100 paid working days for rural Indians.
The coalition government he led for ten years brought together politicians and parties of different ideologies who were rivals in different states of the country.
In a move hailed as one of his greatest achievements aside from economic reforms, Singh ended India’s nuclear isolation by signing an agreement with the US that gave India access to American nuclear technology.
But the deal had a negative impact on his government, with communist allies withdrawing support and criticism of the deal in India when it was finalized in 2008.
Singh took a pragmatic approach to foreign policy and pursued a peace process with nuclear rival and neighbor Pakistan. But his efforts suffered a major setback after Pakistani militants carried out a massive gun and bomb attack in Mumbai in November 2008.
He also tried to end the border dispute with China, reaching an agreement on reopening the Nathu La Pass to Tibet, which had been closed for more than forty years.
His 1965 book, ‘India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth’, was about India’s inward-looking trade policy.
Singh is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur and three daughters.
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Associated Press writer Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.
