Throwback: When Manmohan Singh quoted Victor Hugo in Budget speech

Manmohan Singh presented landmark Union Budget of 1991, ushering in new era for Indian economy

Manmohan Singh presented the Union Budget on July 24, 1991- a landmark budget that ushered in a new dawn for the Indian economy. In his speech, the then finance minister of India said, “I do not minimise the difficulties that lie ahead on the long and arduous journey on which we have embarked. But as Victor Hugo once said, “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”. I suggest to this august House that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea. Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome.”

Manmohan Singh quoted Victor Hugo when he presented the Union Budget on July 24, 1991.

At the time, PV Narasimha Rao, then prime minister of India, oversaw reforms that pulled India back after it had run out of money in 1991. Manmohan Singh, who was the brain behind the reforms said, “I had no inkling that Rao was in favour of liberalisation brd on his past record.”

Arvind Panagariya in an IMF Working Paper titled ‘India in the 1980s and 1990s: A Triumph of Reforms’, wrote, “Growth during the 1980s was also propelled by fiscal expansion financed by borrowing abroad and at home. But this was unsustainable and led to the crisis of June 1991. The fragile but faster growth during the 1980s took place in the context of significant reforms throughout the decade but especially starting in 1985."

He added, "While this liberalization was ad hoc and implemented quietly (“reforms by stealth” is the term often used to describe them), it made inroads into virtually all areas of industry and laid the foundation of the more extensive reforms in July 1991 and beyond. The liberalization pushed industrial growth to a hefty 9.2 percent during the crucial high growth period of 1988–91.”