The stunning transformation of India over multiple fronts achieved by former prime minister Manmohan Singh shows that poverty-stricken developing countries need broad-minded non-politicians with intellectual rigour and a deep concern for all. These types govern in the widest interests of the whole nation, in contrast to the utterly useless professional politicians currently running countries.
Singh, an economist who dramatically changed the course of India’s history in two terms, showed what is possible if professional, honest, competent non-politicians are put in charge of developing countries. He died on December 26 2024, aged 92.
As the premier of the Indian Nation Congress-led coalition government between 2004 and 2014, his administration lifted economic growth rates to 8% of GDP annually, second only to China, taking more than 270-million people out of multidimensional poverty. He industrialised the country, developing India’s now renowned technology industry, boosted infrastructure and made democratic institutions stronger.
In contrast, most traditional politicians in Africa and developing countries, whether liberation movements or military, religious or strongman governments, in almost all cases leave their countries poorer, more violent, more ethnically polarised and more lawless. They break infrastructure, destroy institutions, and set back democracy.
When Singh was appointed finance minister in 1991, he immediately reduced red tape for business, provided incentives for exports, actively lured foreign investors and opened up state monopolies to the private sector.
He developed catalytic sectors such as IT. He privatised state companies which performed poorly, and were so corrupt and captured that they were too costly to clean up, which the private sector or civil society had the capacity to do better.
He introduced a rural jobs scheme that guaranteed income for a minimum of 100 days for every poor household in return for adult members volunteering to do community work.
He enacted a law guaranteeing free and compulsory education for children between six and 14. He also introduced laws that guarantee the right of citizens to access information from the government.
Born into a poor family, he rose with the help of scholarships, studying economics at Cambridge University and obtaining his doctorate at Oxford. He overcame Mount Everest-like odds to become a professor at the Delhi School of Economics before being asked to join the government.
He travelled widely within India and engaged with different communities within India and the world.
Singh was the first prime minister of India of Sikh origin, one reason he was particularly ethnically and religiously inclusive in his decision-making and the rollout of development programmes
Many developing country leaders are not widely educated and do not read broadly. They do not engage within their own diverse societies and are ignorant of them. This is especially true of South Africa.
Sadly, many political leaders have knowledge only of the ethnic community they were raised in — which means the policies they produce are wholly inadequate to tackle the complex problems of their countries.
Singh was the first prime minister of India of Sikh origin, one reason he was particularly ethnically and religiously inclusive in his decision-making and the rollout of development programmes.
Singh did not make populist promises, utter emotionally satisfying slogans or blame the past, former colonisers or conspiracies but focused steadily on implementing policies successfully. He did not play political games, perform for the public gallery or rage against “enemies”. He was a soft-spoken technocrat, mocked for supposedly not being a “proper” politician.
He was humble. He was honest, thoughtful and polite. He brought decency, humility and intellectual rigour to public leadership.
He dealt with challenges with dignity. Importantly, he was decisive, had a steely resolve and was clear-minded about how he was going to take India to become a wealthy place of opportunity for everyone, a quality democracy and a nation with an inner peace. He was at ease with himself, with an apparently healthy inner life.
He was courageous and did the right thing for the country even when this course might be deeply unpopular. In 2005, he made a public apology in parliament for the 1984 riots in which more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed.
Several Congress Party members were accused of being instigators in the riots, which broke out after the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The apology proved healing not only to the Sikh community, but across ethnic, political and communal divisions.
Sadly, in most developing countries, “muscular, bombastic” political leaders are often celebrated who invariably drive more people into poverty, unemployment and violence.
Singh made India’s foreign policy more pragmatic by striking a critical compromise with the US in 2008, which allowed India to access nuclear technology. His decision was widely criticised by both the Congress Party and the opposition, who historically saw the US as the “enemy” and the Soviet Union as the country’s “friend”.
Towards the end of his leadership, a number of Congress Party leaders were accused of corruption. Singh himself was widely accepted to be above reproach.
He served on the UN and was the governor of the Indian Reserve Bank and headed the country’s planning commission. In 1991, when India was facing a deep economic crisis, he was asked by the newly elected prime minister PV Narasimha Rao to become finance minister.
He articulated a “mix of realism and idealism” in the commission’s 1990 report, arguing that “politics in the management of development cannot be wished away … It must be an instrument for purposeful social change rather than a ticket to power and privilege or another lucrative profession”.
• Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
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