FORMER Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh who passed away on Thursday at 92 was a renowned economist who pulled out his country from the economic mess unleashed by the fall of the Soviet Union and an oil price shock triggered by the first US-Iraq war that saw India pawning a chunk of its gold reserves to foreign banks. He was also a statesman, one who offered the best hope in recent memory for his country to establish stable and friendly ties with Pakistan. This he did by backing the resolution of the Kashmir dispute without loss of face for either side, or “without changing the borders”. However, he had misread the ground reality dominated in India by reactionary Hindutva forces that would catapult Prime Minister Narendra Modi to become his successor. He had also overestimated the political durability of the late Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf, with whom he was said to be close to clinching a peace pact centred on Kashmir. Musharraf’s sudden exit from power and Mr Modi’s ideologically driven hostility towards Islamabad combined to torpedo Dr Singh’s quest for a South Asian neighbourhood that was anchored in peace and prosperity.

In dealing with his neighbours, Dr Singh eschewed traditional big brotherly Indian approaches, including towards Pakistan. A significant proof of this was in view when he, as prime minister, would not yield to the hawks in the Indian establishment to go militarily after Pakistan over the horrific terror attack in Mumbai in November 2008. Indian voters endorsed the grounded approach and returned him to power for a second term in the 2009 to the chagrin of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani whose political career Dr Singh ruined. When Mr Modi looked like winning the 2014 general elections, Dr Singh openly warned that such an outcome would be disastrous for India. In his death, Pakistan has lost a partner for peace, and the world a true statesman.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024