Read To the Brink and Back: India’s 1991 Story for Free Online Page B

what we have done is dishonourable or a humiliation. What he has said is that all of us should feel very sad that we brought our country to this pass that these transactions have to be done. I share that perception and all of us in this House and our people outside must reflect as to what has gone wrong with this country that we have to do such painful things.
    But there were some fine moments of statesmanship, too, when the finance minister defended his predecessor,Yashwant Sinha, who was being attacked by Congress MPs during question hour in the Rajya Sabha on 16 July:
    Dr. Manmohan Singh: Mr. Chairman Sir, there is no relation between the stock of gold held by the Reserve Bank or the Government and the price level of the country. So this decision in regard to gold which was taken by the previous Government—some gold went when they were in power, some gold went when we were in power—if you are asking what impact it will have on prices, my answer is a plain “no”—that there is no relation between what was done and the domestic price level.
    The second question that was asked was, was this transaction absolutely necessary and at what level was the decision taken? I am convinced that in both these cases these transactions were very necessary. The former Finance Minister and the former Prime Minister took these decisions. It was not a happy decision. I know that the then Prime Minister was greatly pained by that decision and I share the sense of pain. It is not something of which I am very proud—that I have to sell the country’s gold—but the House must appreciate the situation in which this country stands […] We are not very proud of what we have done but you have my assurance that we considered all options, the pros and the cons, the costs and the benefits. In the circumstances, this was the best possible decision that could be taken.
    ShriYashwant Sinha (Bihar; SJP [Samajwadi Janata Party]): Sir, I am very grateful to the Finance Minister for the way he has spoken. I must say that it has been a totally non-partisan approach that the Finance Minister has brought to bear upon a question to which unnecessary sentiment is sought to be attached […] I must point it out because the Finance Minister has justified what our Government had done and I must express my gratitude. At the same time, I must also say that I am very glad that he has put the record straight because a junior spokesman of that party called it a national betrayal. He does not agree with that and I am glad about that.
    Sadly, that was the first and last time Yashwant Sinha was so magnanimous. After that, he never lost any opportunity to taunt, bait or criticize Manmohan Singh, first as finance minister, and later as prime minister, in the bitterest language possible. I have always believed that this was because he was sore that the credit for ushering in economic reforms was not given to him, but was instead rightly bestowed on Manmohan Singh.
    We had thought that all gold transactions had been completed by 16 July 1991. But reports of a fourth transaction hit the headlines on 18 July. Parliament was agog once again. It was then that it was decided that the finance minister would make an authoritative statement on the gold transfers from the RBI to the Bank of England. Accordingly, he made this statement in the Lok Sabha late at 6 p.m. on 18 July itself. He recounted the history of all transfers and why they had become essential. But the two important new points he made were:
    1.   The movement of gold had to be done without prior public announcements for security reasons.
    2.   No further gold transfers would take place.
    The prime minister mused about gold once or twice. This was particularly so afterAtal Bihari Vajpayee, a leading member of theBJP, who would become India’s eleventh prime minister, had spoken on the budget in the Lok Sabha on 5 August 1991. Vajpayee had said:
    […] There is about 10,000 tonnes of gold in our country, out