FORMER Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, 92, who passed away on Thursday at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, will be best remembered as the person who opened up India’s economy in 1991 as then-prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s finance minister. And his taking over as the country’s prime minister in 2004 was the turning point for India’s foreign policy.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar noted: “While regarded as the architect of Indian economic reforms, he was equally responsible for the strategic corrections to our foreign policy.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “Dr. Singh was one of the greatest champions of the U.S.-India strategic partnership, and his work laid the foundation for much of what our countries have accomplished together in the past two decades. His leadership in advancing the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement signified a major investment in the potential of the U.S.-India relationship.  At home, Dr. Singh will be remembered for his economic reforms that spurred India’s rapid economic growth.”

He added: “We mourn Dr. Singh’s passing and will always remember his dedication to bringing the United States and India closer together.”

Manmohan Singh was prime minister for two terms from May 22, 2004, to May 26, 2014, leading the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

He is survived by his wife and three daughters. The Indian government has announced national mourning of seven days.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday: “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji. Rising from humble origins, he rose to become a respected economist. He served in various government positions as well, including as Finance Minister, leaving a strong imprint on our economic policy over the years. His interventions in Parliament were also insightful. As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives.”

He added: “Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji and I interacted regularly when he was PM and I was the [Chief Minister] of Gujarat. We would have extensive deliberations on various subjects relating to governance. His wisdom and humility were always visible.”

Former prime minister Stephen Harper said: “I am saddened to learn of the passing of my former colleague, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was an individual of exceptional intelligence, integrity, and wisdom.”

In 2010, then-U.S. president Barrack Obama, on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Toronto, told the media: “I can tell you that here at G20, when the Prime Minister speaks, people listen.”

Obama, in his 2020 memoir “A Promised Land,” described Manmohan Singh as “a man with uncommon wisdom” and the “chief architect of India’s economic transformation.”

He wrote: “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seemed like a fitting emblem of this progress: a member of the tiny, often persecuted Sikh religious minority who’d risen to the highest office in the land, and a self-effacing technocrat who’d won people’s trust not by appealing to their passions but by bringing about higher living standards and maintaining a well-earned reputation for not being corrupt.”

In May 2014, Arun Jaitley, who was India’s finance minister from 2014 to 2019, wrote in a personal blog: “I have had an opportunity of observing the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh from close quarters for the last ten years. In the last five years as Leader of Opposition I virtually have heard his every intervention in Parliament and dissected each one of his performances.”

He added: “There were two strong qualities of Prime Minister that I discovered. Firstly, whenever you discussed a serious subject with the Prime Minister he came out as a man of scholarship. He was what we call to as “a Syana aadmi” [a wise man]. His words were measured and he would reflect before making a comment. Secondly, his personal integrity was always above board. With an element of scholarship he was always well read and well prepared on any subject that he dealt with.”

Jaitley also noted: “As curtains draw to a close and a ten year long period of providing leadership to the Government of India, the Prime Minister goes out with dignity and grace. He will remain an elder statesman and a man of credibility to guide the nation.”

ACCORDING to Wikipedia, Manmohan Singh was born to Gurmukh Singh Kohli and Amrit Kaur on 26 September 26, 1932, in Gah, Punjab, British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan), into a family of Punjabi Sikh traders. His mother died when he was very young and he was raised by his paternal grandmother Jamna Devi.

After the Partition of India, his family migrated to Haldwani, India. In 1948 they relocated to Amritsar, where he studied at Hindu College, Amritsar. He attended Panjab University, then in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, studying economics and got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1952 and 1954, respectively, standing first throughout his academic career. He completed his Economics Tripos at University of Cambridge in 1957.

After Cambridge, Singh returned to India and served as a teacher at Panjab University. In 1960, he went to the University of Oxford for his DPhil.

After completing his D.Phil., Singh returned to India. He was a senior lecturer of economics at Panjab University from 1957 to 1959. During 1959 and 1963, he served as a reader in economics at Panjab University, and from 1963 to 1965, he was an economics professor there. Then he went to work for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 1966 to 1969. Later, he was appointed as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Trade by Lalit Narayan Mishra, in recognition of his talent as an economist.

From 1969 to 1971, Singh was a professor of international trade at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

In 1972, Singh was chief economic adviser in the Ministry of Finance, and in 1976 he was secretary in the Finance Ministry. From 1980 to 1982 he was at the Planning Commission, and in 1982, he was appointed governor of the Reserve Bank of India under then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and held the post until 1985.

He went on to become the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission (India) from 1985 to 1987. Following his tenure at the Planning Commission, he was secretary general of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1987 to November 1990.

Singh returned to India from Geneva in November 1990 and held the post as the advisor to Prime Minister of India on economic affairs during the tenure of Chandra Shekar. In March 1991, he became chairman of the University Grants Commission.

In June 1991, India’s prime minister at the time, P. V. Narasimha Rao, chose Singh to be his finance minister.