The (awful) farewell to Manmohan Singh

                                          Manmohan Singh

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave his final Prime Ministerial talk last week. It went on with out much attention or media coverage. But looking back all the neo financial policies and economic reforms of 1990's, it is to be said that at least the young generation of India had to have a retrospective look on the opportunities they had after 1990s.

During  1990s (Singhs as financial minister in Narasimha Rao's Government and later P.M. for the past 10 years) there were hardships for downtrodden people as they lost land or job in rural India .But they were many opportunities for these people in the urban India, where new economic activity shot up with in years and millions of jobs were created.  

Before 1990, the Indian politicians and people were very conservative. They were feeling comfortable  with the traditional five year plans, closed economy,  "gareebi hatova (uproot poverty)" slogans etc. But they never realized the stagnation in economics due to heavy dependence on government rules and regulations  and the bulldozer bureaucracy (Licence Raj). The private sector was devoid of advanced technology and management , cheaper foreign  investment for further development and widespread market and global opportunities. They were not permitted to have good partners from foreign lands , who have advanced technology and experience in certain, specified fields like oil exploration, automobile engineering etc

Above and all , there was protectionism, nepotism and favoritism everywhere . No competition was visible in major industries  (Ambassador car as an example of the lack of technical progress in a closed economy). The agriculture and heavy Industry developed,  but the manufacturing industry was far behind from the global standards. Then came a small vehicle in the Indian soil,  a Suzuki car  with all new looks and comforts. 

It was a wind of change. 

The common man in India realized that there were changes in products and services and Indians are also eligible to have such comforts. So they elected Singh as PM even for the second term .

Bangalore city

After 1990 and Maruthy-Suzuki era India was changing drastically , with a strong internal market and middle class. The poverty among poor people still remained, but the economic growth could swap a considerable sector of such people also. States like Punjab, Haryana, Maharashstra, Gujrath, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh were developing in all spheres of life. The IT industry and IT enabled services stood up in the forefront. 

Now India is a world economic power.

This status was attained only after 1990s. The Indians have to thank the great vision of late PMs Rajeev Gandhi, P.V.Narasimha Rao and out going PM Manmohan Singh and the so called watch dog the "Left" , who persuaded the the Congress led governments to implement Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for the improvement of living conditions of the poor.

Millions and millions of Indian youth now have the opportunity to get good higher education and job. But very few  bothers about the positive role of Manmohan Singh and his predecessors and the Left(Left supported the UPA I Government and active in implementing CMP)  in all these changes.

There are many draw backs and political set backs which the outgoing Prime Minister  had during his regime. The corruption at higher level tarnished the  image of his Government UPA II. It is said that development leaves garbage, which should be taken care of. But then PM was not having the right amount of power and authority to correct the few corruptive ministers. The economic reforms changed a lot in the macro economics of India, liberalized the mind set of people and created millions of new jobs and purchasing power. Still it could not  remove the basic problems in rural India-that of poverty,  of under nutrition, homelessness, no drinking water and inadequate education and health facilities. Never the less, the last government had plenty of poverty eradication programs , which  the left parties and few others  implemented,wherever they were in power.

The tragedy of Manmohan Singh is just like that of Michael Gorbachev . It was Gorbachev in the end initiated the wind of change in Russia. But he lost all control of the country, the economy etc and his reforms perestroika and glasnosch were not being followed by the successive governments. He was later hated by everybody in Russia . Never the less, one day people would realize the positive role of such statesmen in their respective country.

The left would also realize that the UPA I was better than any other coalition in the center. At least during that time Left was a real force in the Indian politics.

So I thank the out going Mr. PM for changing the stagnated Indian mind.

xxxxx

After many days of writing this blog an amazing book has come out: 

THE ACCIDENTAL PRIME MINISTER
THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF 
MANMOHAN SINGH
By Sanjaya Baru

This book is very informative and interesting to read. For a political science student, it is a chapter on contemporary Indian Politics. 

Sometimes I remember the novel "Midnight Children" by Salman Rushdi and " Dharmapuranam" by O.V.Vijayan, while reading this book.