In My Blog Opinion...
What George Bernard Shaw actually meant to say went something like this: 'Those who can, do; those who can't, teach (or write or blog!). But those who can, and do, often do so after reading the teachings (or writings or blogs!) of those who can't.
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Singh’s five years in office have not been memorable. Singh came into office as the darling of the middle-class, with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. His disdain for power and his relatively clean image had the media eating out of his hand. In that sense, when Sonia Gandhi picked him over so many others in the Congress party, it is now clear that she wasn’t making an intelligent choice; rather she had no choice but to choose Manmohan.
Despite what Advani says, Indians are not unfamiliar with dual exercise of power. After all, Mahatma Gandhi for decades was an extra-constitutional centre of power, forcing Congress presidents to follow his whims and diktats. Even Vajpayee genuflected before the RSS and Writers Buildings bows to Alimuddin Street. Only Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi singularly possessed all power; it harmed rather than benefitted India. Thus, Sonia holding the political reins while Singh ran the government was fine as long as he did his job well.
Alas, he did not.
Advani is right when he says that Singh was a weak PM, but he has the wrong reasons. Singh was weak because he gave up pushing the agenda we expected him to implement: reforms. As an article by Razeen Sally in the Financial Times succinctly points out, Singh is a failure on economic reforms. And worse, this brilliant economist has ruined India’s finances with financial profligacy that has result in the country’s fiscal deficit going from less than 5% of GDP in 2004 to near 10% of GDP.
No one expected Singh to do everything. After all, heading a coalition is a tricky job but a determined and strong person can push through what he believes in. A good example is Arjun Singh, who has pushed through the causes he believed in despite opposition from the middle-classes, media and his colleagues. Arjun Singh’s success only proves that Manmohan’s failures are not because of a coalition but his own. Singh’s only success is the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal where he was really battling the communists, and in that, he had the support of most of the other parties and virtually all Indians.
Manmohan Singh could have pushed for greater reforms, particularly in the financial sector, to ensure funds for the numerous social programmes - NREGS, Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan, JNNURM, etc. He could have divested the public sector when the market was booming and reduced India’s yawning deficit. He could have demanded greater productivity from government workers while approving the Sixth Pay Commission. He could have… and one can go on and on, but he did not. That makes not just weak but a failure.
Singh was arguably India’s best FM because his boss, P V Narasimha Rao, protected him and gave him a free hand. The result was a changed India and a deified Singh. Tragically, when Singh had the chance to show his gratitude, he revealed his weakest moment not just as a prime minister but as gentleman: this was when he refused to stand up and say that Rao’s memorial should be in Delhi alongside other former prime ministers and great Indians (after all, even the memorials of the likes of Charan Singh and Sanjay Gandhi are in Delhi). In failing to stand up for Rao, Singh showed himself up as just another politician keeping his current boss Sonia happy. Sonia didn’t want to keep Rao’s memory alive and didn’t even want Hyderabad airport named after him, but paradoxically, history will hail Rao and Singh before it even recalls Sonia and Singh.
Singh might want another opportunity to redeem his name. But India might be better off with a politician who can get his job done than an economist who allowed his hands to be tied. And Singh could well ask himself if it is worth becoming PM again if he can’t do what he is good at, and thereby run the risk of forever destroying his reputation as the Father of Economic Reforms.
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