Remembering Manmohan Singh’s 1st visit to Alwar and language barriers in between!

Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister, also visited Alwar for economic reforms. Before becoming India’s finance minister, he was a renowned economist and served as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. A person of calm and serious demeanour, Manmohan Singh’s entire life was marked by simplicity and humility. I had the privilege of meeting him closely in the 1980s when he visited Alwar for a seminar.

The Alwar Chambers of Commerce and some other local activists had invited him to the town. At that time, the Mayur Hotel at Bhawani Top Chowk was newly built, and Alwar didn’t have many hotels. Mayur was considered prestigious, and attending a press conference or any event there was always exciting for us. It had the largest conference hall in the town. Back then, there were only a handful of journalists in Alwar. I remember the organizers had called us to the Mayur Hotel to cover and hear Manmohan Singh speak. What was interesting about this seminar was that it was the first time Manmohan Singh visited Alwar, and he had no idea that the organizers and journalists like me, who had come to cover the event, didn’t understand English very well.

Since he used to speak in English most of the time, he initially spoke fluently in English, but at our request, he switched to Hindi during his speech, which made it easier for us to understand and report. I remember that Sardar Manmohan Singh, dressed in a blue turban and a white kurta-pyjama, came to the conference hall of Mayur Hotel. His speech was focused on economic reforms and the new industrial policy of the country