Chandigarh, September 26, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
KBS Sidhu, former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the posthumous conferment of the Bharat Ratna on former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
Writing to the Prime Minister on Dr Singh’s 94th birth anniversary, Sidhu noted that Modi was among the first to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister that morning and said it was in that spirit that he was requesting the country’s highest civilian honour for him.
Sidhu recalled that in July 1991, when India’s foreign exchange reserves could pay for barely a few weeks of imports, Dr Singh, as Finance Minister, dismantled the licence-permit system and opened the economy to the world.
Much of India’s subsequent growth and the rise of millions out of poverty rested on the foundations laid during those months, he said.
Referring to the conferment of the Bharat Ratna on former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao by the Modi Government in 2024, Sidhu said the honour recognised the political courage behind the 1991 economic reforms.
“Dr. Manmohan Singh was the other half of that partnership, the economist who designed the reforms and carried them through Parliament and into practice. Honouring him would complete the recognition your Government has already begun,” Sidhu wrote.
Sidhu said that as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, Dr Singh led India through its decade of fastest sustained growth. His tenure also gave the country the Right to Information Act, 2005 and the rural employment guarantee.
He described the India-US civil nuclear agreement as Dr Singh’s most lasting contribution to national security, saying the former Prime Minister pursued it in 2008 at the risk of his own government’s survival.
The agreement ended more than three decades of nuclear isolation following Pokhran, while the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver opened access to fuel and technology and India’s strategic programme remained outside international safeguards and under Indian control, Sidhu said.
“Much of the strategic autonomy and defence partnerships that India enjoys today were built on that foundation,” he said.
Sidhu also recalled Dr Singh’s earlier service as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. He pointed out that Dr Singh was the first Sikh to become Prime Minister and said even his fiercest critics never questioned his personal integrity.
Referring to Dr Singh’s outreach to the Sikh community, Sidhu recalled that in August 2005, speaking in the Rajya Sabha, he apologised to the Sikhs and the nation for the violence of 1984, becoming the first Prime Minister to do so.
He also recalled that in November 2019, at the age of 87, Dr Singh crossed into Pakistan with the first jatha through the Kartarpur Corridor to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur.
Sidhu said the Modi Government’s own outreach to the Sikhs had been widely noticed and argued that conferring the Bharat Ratna on the first Sikh Prime Minister, a leader from the other side of the political aisle, “would send a strong message to the Sikhs and to every minority community.”
Recalling his own interactions with Dr Singh, Sidhu said that as Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, from 1992 to 1996, he had seen at first hand the former Finance Minister’s humility.
Dr Singh, he said, insisted that officers of the Income Tax and Customs Departments, both under his own Ministry, should not leave their work on his account during his private visits to Amritsar.
Sidhu said most demands for the Bharat Ratna for Dr Singh had so far come from political parties, chiefly his own.
“I write as a practising, turbaned Sikh and a retired civil servant of 37 years, with no political affiliation. I believe I speak for a great many Sikhs of Punjab, across party lines,” he said.
“The Bharat Ratna recognises exceptional service of the highest order. I respectfully submit that Dr. Manmohan Singh’s service meets that standard, and I request that it be conferred on him,” Sidhu wrote to the Prime Minister.
KBS Sidhu, a 1984-batch retired Punjab cadre IAS officer, served as Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, from 1992 to 1996 and superannuated as Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab. He is Founder-Editor of The KBS Chronicle.
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