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"A scholar and public servant of great distinction"

Siddharth Varadarajan

CAMBRIDGE: This is the English translation of the speech made in Latin by the University Orator as part of the honorary degree ceremony:

Among the great democracies — and you, the People of India, are not the least among them! — it is very rare indeed for the position of Prime Minister to be entrusted to one who is not a professional politician. Manmohan Singh is a scholar and public servant of great distinction. He grew up in times so perilous that for a long while when India and Pakistan were breaking apart his father went missing and he himself could not discover his own examination results; yet he pursued his studies as far as Cambridge (you may note the colour of his turban), and read economics with such brilliance that he received the only First of his year and was also awarded the Adam Smith prize. One of his teachers says of him, "He was the best student I ever had."

His classic work, still valid, is entitled "India's Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth." You will find argued in it many of the basic ideas which have realised so dramatically the potential of the Indian economy.

He spent much time as a university professor and much time also advising the Indian Government and others on matters financial. When those government leaders begged and besought him themselves, it was impossible for him to refuse his help: he became Governor of India's Reserve Bank. Then he was asked to become Minister of Finance; he accepted that too. By undoing red tape and removing petty regulations he liberated his fellow citizens' talent for entrepreneurship in business.

Finally came the request to serve as Prime Minister. He accepted, observing: "You cannot sustain a democratic polity unless those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder feel they are partners in the process of change." Millions look to this man: they see in him someone of conspicuous integrity; he is, in the words of the Greek poet Simonides, cool and calm, well aware of the justice that serves the state, and a man of healing virtue. I present to you, Manmohan Singh, M.A., Prime Minister of India and Honorary Fellow of St. John's College.

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