Dr. Manmohan Singh, one of fine politicians?
Shortly after I moved to India, reading about the country on various websites has become one of my hobbies. One of articles that I read was about India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, and I was pretty impressed when I learned about his background and career. The following is a rough outline of his background and career.
- First Class Honours degree in Economics, University of Cambridge, (1957)
- Punjab University, Chandigarh, India
- Senior Lecturer, Economics (1957-1959)
- Professor of International Trade (1969-1971)
- Reader (1959-1963)
- Professor (1963-1965)
- D. Phil in Economics, Nuffield College at Oxford University, (1962)
- Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
- Honorary Professor (1996)
- Chief, Financing for Trade Section, UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat, New York
- 1966 : Economic Affairs Officer 1966
- Economic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India (1971-1972)
- Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, (1972-1976)
- Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1976)
- Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-1980)
- Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976-1980)
… a bunch of high government posts.
(He also formerly served in the International Monetary Fund.)
Punjabi is his native tongue and he is an educated Indian person who spent much time in north India, so I’m 99% certain that he speaks Hindi also. He obviously speaks English, so he speaks three languages at the very least.
Looking at this, I’d say that he is the kind of person who would be going after Nobel Prize if he were in academia. If he were in the corporate world, he would be running one of the top 10 companies in the world as CEO. He lead India’s Economic Reform in 1991 and I was getting the impression that India has made great progress economically and politically since the reform took place.
However, I recently learned that his Economic Reform didn’t exactly make everyone happy. I was talking with a friend of mine, who is an Indian person, a couple of days ago, and Dr. Manmohan Singh actually destroyed his business many years ago. To be clear, my friend was not doing anything illegal or shady; Dr. Manmohan Singh’s Economic Reform was so radical in many ways that it actually destroyed so many businesses.
Generally speaking, I do not have high opinions about politicians, but when I learned about Dr. Manmohan Singh’s career background, I was impressed; however, maybe he is just one of many politicians after all. I don’t want to jump right into that conclusion without learning more about Dr. Manmohan Singh, but I am being lead to believe that politicians are after all politicians no matter where you find them in the world. They are power-hungry and corrupt; it’s not exaggeration to say that they love money, young girls (and young boys), drugs, alcohol, fame and power more than any gangsters and celebrities.
