Manmohan Singh, the soft-spoken and cerebral former Indian prime minister, died on Thursday in New Delhi at 92.
His death was announced by the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he passed away.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced Singh’s death on X, calling him one of India’s “most distinguished leaders.”
Singh, the first Indian prime minister from the Sikh minority, led the government from 2004 to 2014.
Mass migrations following India’s independence in 1947 shaped Singh’s early life in what is now Pakistan.
He introduced free-market reforms that turned India into an economic powerhouse, competing with China.
Singh’s policies fueled a huge expansion in white-collar prosperity, despite the country’s ongoing struggle with extreme poverty.
As finance minister in 1991, Manmohan Singh oversaw changes that set India on a path to becoming a regional economic dynamo.
His tenure as prime minister saw attempts at reconciliation with Pakistan, a nuclear-armed regional player.
However, these efforts strained when terrorists from a Pakistan-based jihadist movement attacked Mumbai in 2008.
The attacks exposed Singh to charges of ineffectiveness against terrorism, despite his attempts to calm the nation.
Singh’s administration faced accusations of scandals related to the allocation of cellphone licenses and coal fields.
Despite these challenges, the Congress Party triumphed again in 2009, and Singh received a second term.
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In 2014, Singh announced he would not run for a third term, stating, “History will judge me more kindly than the contemporary media.”
Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in the village of Gah, now in Pakistan.
He studied at Hindu College and Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, and later at St. John’s College, Cambridge.
Singh began his career in public policy in 1972 as chief economic adviser in the Finance Ministry.
He was appointed governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1982 and became finance minister in 1991.
Singh’s policies broke from the mold, permitting deregulation and opening India to foreign investment.
He was prime minister when India became a founding member of the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which joined in 2010.
Singh’s tenure saw India sign a nuclear trade deal with Washington and improve relations with Israel and China.
After his party’s defeat in 2014, Singh returned to academia as a professor at Panjab University.
He continued to warn about the dangers of authoritarianism, advocating for democracy and the achievements of the past seventy years.
