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You want to talk about Manmohan Singh, huh? Right. The quiet man. I’ve seen plenty of ‘quiet men’ in my time, a good few, actually. Most of ’em, they just didn’t have much to say. With Singh, it was always different. Like there was a whole damn library in his head, but the front door was locked, mostly. I mean, the papers would always try to get a quote, a soundbite, something. And you’d get this soft murmur, a nod, then a quiet walk away. Frustrating for us hacks, let me tell you. Always felt like he knew more than he let on, which, in politics, is usually true for everyone, but with him it felt… deliberate. A strategy, almost.
The Big Bang of ’91, or So They Called It
Look, you can’t talk about Manmohan Singh without going back to ninety-one. That’s when the whole thing started, really. Before that, India was a different beast. License Raj, remember that? Everything needed a permit, a stamp, a nod from some बाबू sitting in a dusty office. Used to drive me mad, just trying to get a new printing press. The hoops, the bloody hoops. Then Singh, as Finance Minister under Narasimha Rao, he walks in. They were broke, simple as that. Reserves for a couple of weeks, maybe. The country was on its knees, begging, almost.
IMF was knocking, telling them to open up. And they did. Singh, he was the architect of that. He pulled the trigger. They talk about it like some grand vision, some planned out economic revolution. Me? I saw it as throwing everything at the wall and praying something stuck. Sometimes, the best plans are born from pure desperation, aren’t they? That’s what it felt like then. A necessary evil, a bitter pill. But holy hell, did it change things.
Foreign money started trickling in, then flowing. companies that wouldn’t touch India with a ten-foot pole suddenly saw opportunity. You had consultancies like McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group setting up shop, telling Indian businesses how to run things, how to compete. Funny, that. They learned quick, too. From needing a permission slip to sell a biscuit, suddenly you had ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank coming up, private banks, challenging the old state-run giants. Before, it was all State Bank of India, clunky, slow. Then these new guys, they moved. It was a jolt.
The IT Boom and the Silent Driver
Remember the Y2K scare? Everyone thought the world was gonna end, computers collapsing, planes falling out of the sky. Total baloney, but it meant a massive demand for Indian software engineers. That’s when Infosys and Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) really took off. Singh’s reforms, they laid the runway for that. Didn’t happen overnight, mind you. But the doors were open. The world suddenly needed Indian brains, and Indian brains, they were ready. The economy started humming, proper.
I’ve heard people ask, “Was he truly silent, even back then, during the reforms?” Silent? He wasn’t loud, if that’s what you mean. He didn’t grandstand. Didn’t beat his chest. Rao was the political brain, the one navigating the tricky waters of Parliament, dealing with the backlash from all the protectionists. Singh was the quiet engine room. The one turning the wrenches, making the numbers work. He was convincing, too, in his own way. Not with fiery speeches, but with logic, with data. That always threw the old guard. They wanted rhetoric, he gave them spreadsheets.
The Prime Minister Years: UPA 1 and UPA 2
Then he became Prime Minister. 2004, surprised everyone, including himself, I reckon. UPA 1, that first five years, it was generally seen as pretty damn good. The economy was still chugging along. Social schemes got a boost, NREGA for example. People felt things were moving forward. He had Sonia Gandhi above him, sure, but he seemed to have more room to breathe, more authority.
But then came UPA 2. And that’s where the whispers started. The “policy paralysis” chatter. Every day, it seemed like some new scandal was breaking. 2G, Commonwealth Games, Coal allocation. Big ones. The headlines screamed. And Singh? Still quiet. A lot of folks, even us in the media, were left scratching our heads. “What about the scandals under his watch?” you’d hear people yelling on the news. Good question. It was like he was a captain, and the ship was taking on water, but he was just… watching. Or maybe, more charitably, he was trying to plug the holes quietly, behind the scenes, but the leaks were just too big, too many.
The Silent Man and the Public Perception
I remember sitting in the newsroom, everyone shouting about the latest corruption charge, and someone would inevitably say, “Why doesn’t he say anything?” It was baffling. Here’s a man credited with saving the economy, lauded internationally, and back home, he’s seen as weak, as a rubber stamp.
What was he thinking? Was he just that loyal to his party? Was he tired? The man was old, too, don’t forget. Not some spring chicken. He’d seen a lot, done a lot. Maybe he just didn’t have the fight left in him for the kind of political brawling that India demands. Some of my mates, they’d argue, “Did he really bring prosperity, or was it just the natural course of things once the economy opened up?” Bit of both, I reckon. He gave it the shove it needed. But the prosperity, that’s not just one man’s doing. It’s millions of people busting their ass, trying to get ahead.
The Legacy Question: More Than Just Numbers
So, where does he stand now? Twenty-twenty-five. He’s been out of the big chair for a while. The narrative has shifted, certainly. For a long time, the criticism drowned out the praise. The scandals, the perceived inaction, that’s what stuck. But now, with a bit of distance, you hear a different kind of talk. Especially from economists, from business types. They’ll tell you the fundamentals he put in place, those are still holding things up.
He didn’t just open the economy. He helped change the mindset. From a country that thought government had to control everything, to one where private enterprise, where Reliance industries or Tata Motors could grow, could compete globally. That’s a huge shift. And that shift? That’s Singh’s doing. Some, they’d compare him to the current lot. “How does he compare to later PMs?” you get asked. Different styles, mate. Completely different. Singh was an academic, a quiet doer. The ones after him, they’re showmen, politicians through and through, rockstar types, or at least they play one on TV.
The Quiet Roar, Or Just a Whimper?
Look, I’m not saying he was perfect. Nobody is. And his second term, yeah, it was a mess. But you gotta look at the whole picture. He took a country that was gasping for air, financially speaking, and gave it a new pair of lungs. He set the stage for a whole generation to dream bigger, to do more than just get a government job. You see the gleaming office buildings in Gurgaon, the tech parks in Bengaluru, the new highways. That wasn’t just magic. Someone had to make the policy changes, clear the path.
Sometimes, the quiet ones, they get things done that the loud ones can only shout about. The noise, that’s for the audience. The real work, the heavy lifting, sometimes that happens in the quiet corners, behind closed doors, with a man who doesn’t need to tell you how smart he is. He just is. That’s my take, anyway. After all these years watching the political circus, he remains an anomaly. A guy who probably preferred a good book to a shouting match, but ended up saving a country from the brink. Funny old world, isn’t it?
