Stories of extreme hardship, braving impossible odds and innumerable
sacrifices, abound in the lives of nearly 90 per cent of the students in
the country. But among them, some perform exceptionally well. Their
academic laurels are so brilliant, that at times their CV looks
intimidating. And each one acknowledges that it's the right education
that made them what they are today.
Some, like our Prime Minister, had to walk miles to reach an unlit
school, while some, like Dr Mashelkar, were forced to go to the nearby
railway platform to study, the only well-lit place in the vicinity, in
the dead of the night when rail traffic slowed down. Some others, like
Dr Homi J Bhabha, were not challenged by penury, but faced tremendous
intellectual isolation, and at times, prejudices. Invariably each story
is one of constant struggle; against poverty, against social order,
against the system and at times even against indifference, with only
their powerful intellect and tremendous capacity for hard work as
allies.
Whenever he was asked for the secret of his professional success Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh would say only one thing, "I am what I am
because of my education." He has often thanked his family for ensuring
that he went right up to college and then had opportunities to win many
scholarships that finally helped him get a PhD from Oxford University.
Manmohan Singh was born into a family of modest means in the village of
Gah in Pakistan. For the first 12 years of his life he lived there, a
village which had no electricity, no school, no hospital, no piped
drinking water. He walked for miles every day to school and studied at
night in the dim light of a kerosene lamp. When asked once why he had
poor eyesight he confessed that it was because he had spent hours
reading books in that dim light.
His journey from Cambridge to the UN to the Indian government.
It was his hard work that enabled him to finish his schooling and attend
college in Amritsar, where he lived after the Partition. He then won a
scholarship to go to Cambridge University in England to do his Master's
in Economics. Another scholarship helped him complete his PhD. He won
the coveted Adam Smith Prize in Economics for his outstanding academic
record. He always stood first and was a brilliant student.
For all his brilliance, he was a very shy boy. He once told Mark Tully,
the famous BBC correspondent in India, that throughout his stay in
Cambridge he used to bathe with cold water because the moment hot water
was available in the hostel all the other students would come in to
bathe and he felt shy to show them his long hair. As the only Sikh
student in the hostel he felt inhibited to remove his turban in front of
others. It is this shy boy who became the darling of his teachers
because he was such a good student. He returned to India to teach at his
college in Amritsar. One day, his neighbour, renowned writer Mulk Raj
Anand, took him to meet Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Panditji
asked him to join the government. But he had a commitment to teach at
the college and so he could not accept that offer.
Later, when he was working at the United Nations under the famous
economist Raul Prebisch, he got an offer to join Delhi School of
Economics as a lecturer. He immediately accepted that invitation and
decided to return to India. Dr Prebisch was shocked. So many brilliant
economists would be delighted to get a UN job and this young man was
giving it up to teach in India? "You are being foolish," Prebisch told
Manmohan Singh, adding, "But, sometimes in life it is wise to be
foolish!"
Manmohan Singh returned home first to teach and then to work in the
Government. He has held every important job in the field of economic
policy making in India -- Chief Economic Advisor to Government of India,
Finance Secretary, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, Deputy Chairman,
Planning Commission, Union Finance Minister and now Prime Minister!
In 2005 when he visited Kaula Lumpur for the India-ASEAN Summit he was
introduced at the ASEAN Business Forum meeting as "the world's most
qualified Head of Government"! That is what makes us all proud. No
country in the world has a more qualified head of government and India
has never had such a highly qualified Prime Minister.
Manmohan Singh's life is a record of excellence and of merit being
rewarded. His life will always be an inspiration to young people who
want to work hard and achieve something based on their learning. No rich
parents, no influential uncles, no wealth, no inheritance, no one to
pull strings and 'put in a word' -- it was always his merit, his hard
work, his honesty, his intelligence and, above all, his deep love for
India that energised him.
Every young Indian should feel inspired by the life of Manmohan Singh!
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