A Nation Pauses For The Quiet Prime Minister Who Reshaped India
Tributes from the prime minister, union ministers, chief ministers and the opposition mark 94 years since the birth of the man who opened up India's economy and led it with care for a decade
 |
| Image Source: @RahulGandhi on X |
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in remembering him by stating, "Tributes to our former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji on his birth anniversary. He spent many years in public life and served the nation with dedication."
Union minister Kiren Rijiju said Singh's long years of service and his contribution to public life would always be remembered with respect. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said his contribution to India's progress would endure. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said his contributions would always be cherished.
Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party leader, remembered him as a visionary statesman and a brilliant economist who would always be associated with his financial reforms.
At the Congress headquarters on Akbar Road in New Delhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi laid floral tributes. They were joined by senior party leaders. The family also held a prayer meeting at Singh's residence, which Rahul Gandhi attended.
Writing in Hindi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said Singh had given new direction to the country's economy and to social justice through his humility, honesty and foresight, and that his historic decisions and contributions to the building of India would continue to guide the country.
The Congress described him as the architect of India's economic reforms, and said his quiet strength and statesmanship had guided India through difficult times. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge said Singh's reforms had transformed India's growth trajectory and helped lift millions out of poverty, and that the rights-based framework of his government remained an enduring testament to his vision.
LoP Shri @RahulGandhi paid floral tributes to former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on his birth anniversary.
— Congress (@INCIndia) September 26, 2026
Dr. Singh was the architect of India's economic reforms and a leader who served the nation with wisdom, integrity and humility. His quiet strength and statesmanship… pic.twitter.com/RHJcxcVI5o
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera remembered a man who served without clamour or a desire for attention, and who taught the value of humility, dignity and quiet resolve.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who served as a minister of state in Singh's government, remembered a man whose quiet presence changed India in ways far louder than his manner ever was. Few, he wrote, combined scholarship with statecraft so naturally, or carried such responsibility with so little vanity. He said he had been privileged to witness Singh's understated wit at close quarters, and that the scale of his contribution only became clearer with time. History would debate governments and policies, as it should, Tharoor added, but Singh's seriousness of purpose, intellectual rigour and essential decency deserved remembrance beyond the arguments of the day.
The anniversary comes as the memorial to Singh moves closer to construction. The Delhi Urban Arts Commission approved the architectural proposal at its meeting on 25 August, subject to conditions, including that the memorial remain in harmony with the character of the surrounding complex rather than stand as an isolated structure. The site, at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal near Rajghat, sits among the memorials of former prime ministers and presidents, adjacent to that of the former president Pranab Mukherjee. Singh's family accepted the location in writing.
Singh was born on 26 September 1932 in Gah, a village in the Punjab province of undivided/colonised India, now in Pakistan. He studied at Panjab University and then at Cambridge and Oxford, taught at the Delhi School of Economics, and worked at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development before entering government.
He served as chief economic adviser, secretary in the department of economic affairs, member secretary of the Planning Commission and governor of the Reserve Bank of India. As finance minister from 1991 to 1996 in PV Narasimha Rao's government, he presented the budget that began India's economic liberalisation, dismantling licensing controls and opening the economy to foreign investment and trade at a moment of acute balance-of-payments crisis.
He was prime minister from 22 May 2004 to 26 May 2014. His governments enacted the rural employment guarantee scheme now known as MGNREGA, the Right to Information Act and the Right to Education Act, the three measures his party most often invokes when describing his legacy.
Singh passed away at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on 26 December 2024, at the age of 92. He is survived by his wife, Gursharan Kaur, and three daughters.
At his last press conference as prime minister, in January 2014, responding to those who called his leadership weak, he offered a judgment that has been quoted often since: "I honestly believe history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media."