Barack Obama’s comments in his memoir “A Promised Land”, about Dr. Manmohan Singh as a man of unusual wisdom was widely discussed in the media and the political circle.
Obama’s account of his India visit in the book – which covers his campaign for the White House and his first term between 2008 and 2012 – also underscores his concern about “divisive nationalism touted by the BJP”.
Noting India’s transition to a more market-based economy in the 1990s, which, he says, led to soaring growth, a tech boom, and a rising middle class, Obama writes: “As a chief architect of India’s economic transformation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seemed like a fitting emblem of this progress: a member of the tiny, often persecuted Sikh religious minority who’d risen to the highest office in the land, and a self-effacing technocrat who’d won people’s trust not by appealing to their passions but by bringing about higher living standards and maintaining a well-earned reputation for not being corrupt.”
He says the time he spent with Manmohan Singh confirmed his initial impression of him as a man of “uncommon wisdom and decency.”
