PM for 10 years: Mixed bag for Manmohan Singh

New Delhi: Once upon a time, Singh was King. The sheen slowly but steadily lost its gleam. Even as the PMO awaits the “broad-chested”, tough-talking Narendra Modi to take charge, nobody can dispute the fact that the slightly-built Manmohan Singh looked quite incongruous even while flashing the “victory sign” after a hard-fought battle for the India-US civil nuclear deal.

Bodybuilding is not de rigueur to lead the world’s largest democracy. Moral aura should be sufficient. However, Dr Singh lost even that with the scams that rocked UPA-II.

The outgoing PM, on his part, never shied away from political reality. When confronted with a difficult demand from a political leader, a coalition partner or just about anyone, he would confess to them that he did not have the last word. He was, after all, just an “accidental prime minister”. The actual power centre was Sonia Gandhi.

Thus wrote the PM’s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru, who served in the PMO during UPA-I, in his book The Accidental Prime Minister. The implication that it was really the Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to whom he owed his appointment as PM and it was she who called the shots even though she was not a part of the government, predictably, stirred a fresh controversy just before the Lok Sabha elections.

But then, this was never a big secret. Both within and outside the government, it was well-known that Dr Singh’s functioning as the PM was constantly hamstrung, and often undermined, by the existence of “two power centres” in UPA-I and II, the one at 10 Janpath being the much more powerful one.

It appears the technocrat-turned-PM was willing to swallow his pride even as his toes were being regularly tread upon. Sample this. While it was Dr Singh who oversaw the initiation of the successful MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) during UPA-I’s tenure, the Congress was only too happy to tom-tom it as Mr Rahul Gandhi’s brainwave when the scheme was extended to all the districts of India.

Reluctant to contest the party’s claims, the PM reportedly told Mr Baru: “Let them take credit. I don’t need it. I am only doing my work.”
 Widely credited for kicking-off far-reaching economic liberalisation in 1991 as the country’s finance minister in 1991, the PM was quiet and unassuming to a fault. So much so the good doctor was even happy to let Mrs Gandhi and not his government walk away with all the glory for introducing the food security scheme. This only weakened him further, diminishing the office of the PM.

Indeed, especially in the UPA-II era, it appears Dr Singh’s emasculation as PM was so complete that even members of his Cabinet felt that they did not owe their positions in the council of ministers to him. Some even openly defied him as his authority eroded. Neither did party MPs feel the need to give the PM as much importance as the two Gandhis, genuflecting before them as Dr Singh looked on silently.

None doubted Dr Singh’s personal integrity and honesty. And yet, not many were willing to take kindly to a head of government who was perceived as being unable to assert himself. Or incapable of cracking the whip on erring or corrupt members of his Cabinet for their alleged involvement in the 2G, Commonwealth Games and other sundry scams.

‘A good man,’ as most would call him, the PM’s heart may have been in the right place, not to speak of his acumen as an economist who earned his spurs within the hallowed portals of Oxford and Cambridge.

And yet the tag of a ‘weak’ PM stubbornly stuck to him, more so during the tenure of UPA-II, as the 2G, coal and other scams gathered steam. His government found itself being widely bandied about as the “most corrupt” in India’s history.

Dr Singh’s reluctance last year to rid the Cabinet of two allegedly tainted ministers the then law minister Ashwani Kumar and railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal — only added to the perception. Here again, the message conveyed to the world at large was that he acted only after Mrs Gandhi ordered him to do so.

The signing of the India-US civilian nuclear deal was seen as a crowning glory during Dr Singh’s first stint as PM, in the backdrop of him even staking his government’s survival on the issue. Yet, even after six years of the historic pact ending India’s nuclear apartheid, it has failed to translate into any concrete gains for India, with several countries continuing to have reservations about the suppliers’ liability law.

 As Dr Singh walks away into the sunset, he will wait for history to judge him, kindly as he hopes. Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, the verdict on his two terms as PM — it paralleled Jawaharlal Nehru’s two stints — will be kinder than contemporary comment.
Dr Singh will probably be happy with that, as is his proclivity.