‘Worked remarkably well with senior, peer, junior economists’: Dr Rathin Roy on Manmohan Singh

Economist Dr Rathin Roy, who was the Economic Advisor to the Thirteenth Finance Commission, said that apart from the legacies of Dr Manmohan Singh that are widely celebrated even today, there are two more that are rarely commented upon. He said Singh had great confidence in his own analytical capabilities and a large ego to give credit to others for their work. Singh worked with his contemporary economists very well, as also with senior and junior economists. 

Talking to India Today TV, Roy said, “I would say that he left behind two economic legacies which have not been commented on. I'm sure many people have commented on many things such as getting India out of its first existential crisis, the nuclear deal etc. It wasn't that. You see Dr Singh had this amazing ability to lead and therefore to develop teams that would work under his leadership.” 

In 1974, when India was facing very high inflation, he was the Chief Economic Advisor and managed to get inflation under control, said Roy. “When he was in the Reserve Bank of India – all that you see in terms of reforms of the India’s financial system today started when he commissioned a report by Professor Sukhamoy Chakravarty on the working of the Indian financial system, whose implementation over the next 10 or 15 years has led to India having a modern financial system, and so on and so forth,” said Roy. 

“It is quite remarkable if you look at his ability to work with economists older than him – Arjun Sengupta, IG Patel, Bagicha Minhas, economists who were his contemporaries – Dr Rangarajan, Dr Vijay Kelkar, economists who were junior to him – Dr Raghuram Rajan, Dr Kaushik Basu, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia. He was able to work with all of them to deliver results for India and that is the hallmark of a true policy leader,” said Roy. 

Roy said Singh’s legacy was to act and behave like a leader in the policy domain and to get others to work with him. “And that requires two things, which he had in abundance: great confidence in your own technical and analytical capabilities, which he had in good measure, and a very large eco to be able to work with others and give them credit,” said Roy, adding that he did both.