Sardar Manmohan Singh passed away Thursday night in New Delhi. He was the driving force behind opening up India’s economy to the world, which helped pull a record number of people out of poverty and paved the way for the country to gain a place at the top of the world economy. Three daughters and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, survive the former prime minister.
According to a statement from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, where former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was admitted, he passed away on Thursday from age-related illnesses. He was ninety-two.
“With profound grief, we inform the demise of former Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, aged 92. He was being treated for age-related medical conditions and had a sudden loss of consciousness at home on 26 December 2024,” AIIMS said. “Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the medical emergency at AIIMS, New Delhi at 8.06 pm. Despite all efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 9.51 pm,” AIIMS added.
As Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, Singh broke the country’s long nuclear winter, steered it successfully through the global financial crisis and marked a place for the country in the new world order. From 2004 to 2014, Manmohan Singh served two terms as prime minister of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which was led by the Congress. For the past few months, he had been ill.
An unlikely politician, the soft-spoken, scholarly academic-politician was born in Gah, Pakistan, but his family moved to India during Partition. He attended Cambridge and Oxford universities, and while he was prime minister, he redefined the role of the welfare state and embraced the free market.
In a post on X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences over the leader’s passing. “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,” PM Modi said. “Dr Manmohan Singh ji and I interacted regularly when he was PM and I was the CM of Gujarat. We would have extensive deliberations on various subjects relating to governance. His wisdom and humility were always visible. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the family of Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji, his friends and countless admirers. Om Shanti,” he added.
Upon learning about Manmohan Singh’s hospitalisation, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her mother, Sonia Gandhi, arrived at the hospital.
Under then-prime minister PV Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh was the finance minister. He was the driving force behind the 1991 economic changes that saved India from bankruptcy and marked the beginning of an era of economic liberalisation that is generally accepted to have altered the country’s economic direction. When Manmohan Singh’s death was announced, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and party MP Rahul Gandhi were in Belagavi, Karnataka, attending the Congress Working Committee meeting. According to the news agency, both are going back to Delhi.
Following the death of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at AIIMS Hospital in New Delhi on December 26, 2024, the centre has declared a seven-day nationwide state of mourning that would last until January 1, 2025. During this time, the National Flag will be flown at half-mast at all locations where it is customarily displayed, and all official entertainment will be suspended.
Manmohan Singh famously claimed that his leadership was strong and that history will treat him better than the media at the time, months before he resigned as prime minister in 2014.
Speaking at a press conference held here in January 2014, one of his final appearances in front of the media, Singh had said, “I do not believe that I have been a weak Prime Minister … I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or for that matter the Opposition in Parliament… Given the political compulsions, I have done the best I could do.” “…I have done as well as I could do according to the circumstances… It is for history to judge what I have done or what I have not done,” Singh, who was the prime minister for 10 years till Narendra Modi took charge on May 26, 2014.
He was answering a barrage of enquiries about claims that his leadership was “weak” and that he frequently lacked decisiveness. In addition, Singh used the press conference to attack Modi, the BJP’s then-prime ministerial nominee, and brought up the Gujarat riots of 2002 while serving as chief government.
