Rahul Singh :
INDIA HAS not had a more enigmatic Prime Minister than the outgoing Dr. Manmohan Singh. Prime Minister for 10 years, longer than anybody outside the Nehru/Gandhi dynasty, he has already declared that he is not a candidate for the prime ministership, no matter what the outcome of the of the ongoing General Election.
However, what has astonished many Indians, even his supporters, is his complete absence from the electoral scene. He is nowhere to be found in the furious, noisy hurly-burly of the campaigning that has been going on for the past month. It is almost as if he has completely withdrawn from the political landscape, perhaps a thoroughly disillusioned and disappointed man.
But what is equally surprising is how the Congress Party has virtually disowned him. It does not seem to have asked him to appear at any of its campaign rallies. If, as the Congress claims, that the present government has provided the country with significant economic growth and consequent alleviation of poverty during its 10-year rule (some 150 million Indians have been lifted out of poverty in that time), why not put the main architect of that proud achievement on centre-stage?
That question is on the mind of most Indians, including this writer, and I shall try and give an answer, even though the Congress Party has maintained an embarrassed silence.
First, Singh is not a politician in the Indian mould. He was an outstanding academic, with a Phd from the prestigious Oxford University in the UK. He then became a bureaucrat, rising to its topmost ranks. When he was just 50 years old, he was appointed the Governor of India’s regulatory Reserve Bank of India, a key position in directing the Indian economy. In 1991, after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and when Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister, he became Finance Minister.
It was an inspired choice. The Indian economy was then in acute crisis, its foreign exchange reserves perilously low. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was pointing a gun at New Delhi’s head. In any case, even without the IMF’s pressure, India needed a complete transformation of its economic policies and, in particular, the dismantling of its so-called “socialist” order which had promoted an inefficient and corrupt public sector while discouraging private enterprise. Even when the Bharatiya Janta Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came into power after Rao, it followed much the same economic policies that Singh had initiated.
In the 2004 General Election, the NDA was expected to win again. To everybody’s surprise, the Congress, under the leadership of the astute Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, turned the tables on the NDA. The prime ministership was Sonia’s for the taking. But, probably aware of the scepticism in the minds of many Indians of a “foreigner” taking over the reins of the country, she chose Singh as the Prime Minister. It was yet another inspired choice, the implicit arrangement being that Singh would take care of the economy, she of political strategy. The arrangement worked well for the first term of the United Progress Alliance (as the Congress-led alliance was called) government. India recorded impressive economic growth, the second highest in the world after China. Both Sonia and Singh were riding high. The NDA was trounced again in 2009.
Then, matters started to unravel with UPA2. Embarrassing corruption scandals followed, one after another, involving leading members of the government. Singh tried to brush them off as the “compulsions of coalition politics”, a reference to the fact that the Congress had to take other political parties as its partner. And that those were the parties responsible for the scams. But the Indian public did not buy that. The perception gained that Singh was a weak man who should have put his foot down, or resigned if he could not get this way. To make matters worse, the Indian economy began declining. Inflation, too, remained unsustainably high, as did the unemployment rate.
So, how will history treat Singh?
He once said that the media has been unkind to him and that he would go down in history in a better light. Few doubt his complete personal integrity. And nobody from his immediate family has ever benefited from his position. That is saying a lot in India. My late father, Khushwant Singh, an admirer of the Prime Minister, liked to relate how Singh’s brother had once come to him for financial assistance to fight Singh’s election to Parliament (he lost). After the election, my father got a call from Singh, asking to meet him. When they met, Singh handed him a packet.
“I believe my brother asked you for some funds for my election. I am returning you the money”, he said to my astonished father, handing over the packet.
“Which Indian politician would ever do that?” my father used to ask those who would query him on what he thought of Singh.
But the question remains: With such great qualities, why did he tolerate and acquiesce in the venality surrounding his administration? Honesty and decency are admirable traits, but there are times when firmness and decisiveness are needed. The verdict is still out on Singh’s place in history.
(Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times)
