Intellectually impeccable but politically fallible

Last week, Manmohan Singh in a rare parliamentary intervention broke his silence and used his trademark brevity to deliver the most stinging criticism to the government’s demonetization move and its implementation. Without putting on a display of lung power, Singh has handed over a most potent weapon to the Opposition to take on the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, with his careful arguments. It is highly likely that his words —“organised loot and legalised plunder,” would resonate with those opposing demonetization. It also helped nail down his criticism that the words were coming from someone who was an internationally renowned career economist, and India’s former governor of the RBI, and advisor to the government before he became a politician.

But when one looks back at his tenure and the trust Indian middle class had reposed on the master economist particularly at the beginning of his second term as the Prime Minister in 2009, his words sounded hollow. His second tenure was filled with large scams and unethical practices.

The list started with the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and moved on to the exposure of the 2G spectrum allocations, the Adarsh Housing scam, the Westland helicopter scam, the coal allocations scam, the banking, the money-laundering scam and, the Railways appointment scam. Dr Singh, in spite of being in a position to know everything that was happening under his nose, maintained his trademark silence. Even his aides say he was not entirely in control of his cabinet — or even the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Instead, significant power was wielded by the Congress party’s president Sonia Gandhi, to whom Singh was completely “subservient.” “There cannot be two centres of power,” remembers his Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru. The two power centres only created confusion. During his tenure, the party president was the centre of power and the government was answerable to the party, rather than an elected parliament.

Dr Singh himself has not been charged with corruption, but with turning a blind eye to the corruption of others. Public opinion still is no longer willing to excuse him for choosing not to claim and exercise the authority that was his due as Prime Minister.

Despite presiding fairly a well-administered tenure between 2004 and 2008, that saw thriving neighbourly relations with Pakistan, as well as a drive to bring social schemes like NREGA and the landmark Right to Information Act, his decision not to return to office via the Lok Sabha exposed his predicament of being a fallible politician.

His well-wishers also say that was his biggest political mistake. It would have behooved the trust reposed in him to have told Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi that he would prefer to retire as directly elected PM rather to return to the job from the Rajya Sabha.

In mid-2014, former Coal Secretary PC Parakh also showed Singh in poor light as a politician. He raised questions over his authority within the government he headed. Undoubtedly, there is no one in the political mainstream who can match the reputation of either the integrity or the scholarship of Dr Singh, but he left whole nation in incredulous state. What was predicted to be the nation’s pride became the most corrupt period in Indian history on his watch. He will go down in history as intellectually impeccable but politically fallible, who was just warming the chair at someone’s behest.