MMS: A “night-watchman” or an undisputed leader.

  Year 1991, Indian economy was on the brink of bankruptcy, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was India's major trading partner, and the Gulf War, which caused a spike in oil prices, resulted in a major balance-of-payments crisis for India. The country has voted a new government and PV Narsimha Rao was all set to become Prime Minister. He had a great challenge ahead of him to revive the economy and bring reforms. He needed a “Nightwatchman” who can bring reforms and give push to Indian Economy. 

  Narsimha Rao wanted I. G. Patel as his finance minister. Patel was an official who helped prepare 14 budgets, an ex-governor of Reserve Bank of India and had headed The London School of Economics and Political Science.  But Patel declined. Narsimha Rao sent his Principal Secretary to Manmohan Singh saying, “The PM would like you to become the Minister of Finance”. MMS didn’t take it seriously. Rao eventually called Manmohan Singh the next morning, rather angry, and demanded that to get dressed up and come to Rashtrapati Bhavan for the swearing in. MMS put a condition that he would need complete freedom as Finance Minister and Mr. Rao agreed.  So that’s how a “Night-watchman” came into politics to guard the poor economy.

At that time, India's fiscal deficit was close to 8.5 per cent of the gross domestic product, the balance of payments deficit was huge and the current account deficit was close to 3.5 percent of India's GDP. India's foreign reserves barely amounted to US$1 billion. But a no nonsense Finance Minister has taken guard to steer the Indian Economy. MMS brought reforms through abolishing Licnse Raj and paving way for Foreign Direct Investment. Year 1991 is said to be the era of reforms and strong economy. Indian economy came on the track and reforms have been made which resulted into more employment and a stable nation. To those who thinks MMS is a silent man, he has given signs of his brevity in 1993 when he was criticised as Finance Minister, He sent his resignation to the PM. Prime Minister Narsimha Rao refused Singh's resignation and assured the support.

Later P. Chidambaram has referred to Singh as the “Deng Xiaoping” of India.

MMS showed his mettle more often, soon after becoming PM of India, he advocated for Nuclear deal with US, The left party with its 68 MPs boycotted the move. Singh’s coalition government was on the verge of collapse. But, MMS did not worry about left parties leaving the coalition. Even in congress leaders were worried about the numbers. But, MMS was rigid and vowed to go ahead with the deal else offered to leave. Such is his persona that party had to accept his words and went ahead with the nuclear deal.  MMS had to prove numbers in the parliament as left parties had withdrawn the support to the UPA government. However, RJD and DMK remained together. But Samajwadi Party opposed the deal. SP later changed its stand and supported the government and the deal. The Government survived a vote of confidence after the Left Front withdrew their support to the government. Incidentally, results showed ten MP's belonging to the opposing BJP party cross-voting in the favour of the government. 

"I don't think there is any truth in this political criticism. The voluntary moratorium on not conducting further nuclear tests was imposed by our government," said Bal Thackeray criticising the opposition of the deal by BJP.

This is one of those examples showing the will power of an often termed as silent PM of India. But that was way back in 2005 and our opposition has a habit of forgetting things easily. MMS showed his power again in 2012 by passing FDI in parliament after a strong opposition by BJP and TMC. Mamta Banerjee led TMS left the Government saying it has lost its credibility. But MMS was unmoved and determined to pass FDI in parliament. Parliament voted against the motion on FDI moved by Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj.

The discussion on FDI in parliament discovered a new young and vibrant leader in Deepender Hooda, who took on opposition and exposed the hypocrisy of BJP and Akali Dal.

Lalu Prasad went on saying: “Nescafe peene walon, poocho Advaniji se Twitter ka istemal kyun kartein hain, woh videshi nahi hain kya”

Manmohan Singh addressed the nation and spoke about FDI and its benefit to the Indian Economy and his critics were numb. When Singh roars then roars further.

But some wannabe PM calls MMS a “Night-watchman”. Much to his ignorance, perhaps he didn’t know the meaning of “Night-watchman”. A night-watchman’s job is to maintain most of the strike in the adverse circumstances and protect the government. Which MMS is doing since 1991, then as a Finance Minister, and now as Prime Minister of India from last 9 consecutive years.

Praises for Manmohan Singh:

Khushwant Singh stated, "When people talk of integrity, I say the best example is the man who occupies the country's highest office.”

Forbes magazine described Singh as being "universally praised as India's best prime minister since Nehru"

Barack Obama said: “When Manmohan Singh speaks people listen”

 PS: You can’t teach the ignorant, who talks about glass half full with air, and thus the fact is that the glass is half full with blood.

@Tarique_Anwer