Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the first member of India’s Sikh minority to hold the post, died on Thursday in New Delhi at the age of 92. Viewed by many, including some within his party, the Indian National Congress, as a weak leader designated.

“India mourns the loss of one of its greatest leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on “He has made great efforts to improve people’s lives.”

Singh was prime minister between 2004 and 2014, but political commentators say his time as finance minister in the early 1990s was the most significant. His policies at the time put India on the path of economic liberalization and globalization.

“Smart, thoughtful and extremely honest” is how former US President Barack Obama described Singh in his memoirs A promised land.

Singh was born on September 26, 1932 in a village called Gah in what is now Pakistan. His family migrated east when Britain divided the subcontinent into independent India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947. Partition sparked mass migration and sectarian violence that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including Singh’s grandfather.

Singh, an Oxford-educated economist, drafted in 1991 what economists call one of the most radical budgets in India’s history: he opened the country to the free market.

“Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake,” Singh announced during his Budget speech.

“The budget statement was a shock because it almost upended most of the economic wisdom of the time,” says Rajesh Chakrabarti, an expert in finance and public policy.

Until 1991, Chakrabarti explains, India was a socialist, public sector-dominated, import-restricted economy. When Singh became finance minister, the situation was dire. India was in a severe balance of payments crisis.

“We were importing much, much more than we were exporting, and our foreign exchange reserves were at a low point,” says Chakrabarti. “India actually had to ship gold – meaning it physically put its gold reserves into ships and sent them to (banks in) London to get money to run the economy.”

Singh’s landmark Budget opened India’s economy to foreign direct investment, cut import tariffs and ended the Permit Raj, a complex system of regulations and bureaucracy that discouraged private investment.

In 2004, Singh came into the spotlight again when Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born matriarch of the Congress party, appointed Singh to the top job after she refused to become prime minister following the party’s landslide victory.

But critics called him the Gandhis’ “puppet,” mocked his gentle manner and said he lacked oratorical skills.

“Humility was his strength and in some ways his weakness because he couldn’t put himself out there,” says Rasheed Kidwai, author of a book on the Congress party.

Nevertheless, he led India through several international and domestic crises, says Kidwai.

“When the global economy faltered in 2008, India stood firm,” he says. While Singh was in office, “there was no confrontation with difficult neighbors like Pakistan and China,” despite a deadly 2008 terror attack in Mumbai by Pakistani militants.

Kidwai says Singh was particularly successful in foreign policy. “He wasn’t one-dimensional,” he says. “(Singh) had very good relations and functional relations with Iran, and at the same time he was very welcomed in Saudi Arabia.”

Under Singh’s leadership, India moved closer to the US on several fronts. In particular, the two countries agreed on a nuclear deal that lifts a decades-long moratorium on nuclear trade. Singh’s other achievements included stimulating India’s economy and introducing a social welfare program that guaranteed employment in rural areas.

But his second term was marred by corruption scandals, followed by his Congress party’s worst defeat in the 2014 national elections. Singh did not run again in those elections, which were won by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. He was cleared of wrongdoing in the corruption scandals.

After leaving office, Singh continued to live in Delhi with his family. He is survived by his wife Gursharan Kaur, a historian, and their three daughters.

According to Chakrabarti, Singh was one of India’s most graceful prime ministers. “I don’t think even his worst critics will ever have anything but respect for the man,” he says.

“My life and my tenure in public office are an open book,” Singh, wearing his signature light blue Sikh turban, said in his farewell speech in 2014. “Serving this nation has been my privilege. I couldn’t ask for more.” for.”