As soon as home minister P Chidambaram spoke of how politicians over 60 (himself humbly included) should make way for youngsters in the Union Cabinet, our septuagenarian prime minister announced he would start meeting India’s Editors, weekly. As an Editor this makes me happy. Once you get a person talking, there’s no stopping him (for example, P Chidambaram). Indeed, most editors were so stunned by Dr Manmohan Singh’s newfound garrulousness that they focused their comments on his body language and on how he was being assertive vis-à-vis the party, missing completely his mention of how the economy was tanking.

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Well, okay, maybe he didn’t use the word ‘tank’. But he did talk about Greece possibly defaulting and about the Euro-zone imploding; so what he was saying was that it doesn’t matter if the monsoon is near-normal, and it doesn’t matter if NREGS kicks in and spurs rural consumption, because the world is tilting into “double-dip” recession. It’s so bad that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s US counterpart, treasury secretary Tim Geithner, has decided to get the hell out of Washington, DC.

Chinese growth may soon hit a Great Wall due to a housing bubble, manufacturing over-capacity and non-performing loans. Perhaps this whole drama around the International Monetary Fund chief — Dominique Strauss-Kahn is arrested in the US for sexual assault, he resigns, Christine Lagarde takes over, the case against him is dropped because the victim is suddenly discovered to have mob links — is linked to this, but don’t ask me how.

So what exactly was Dr Manmohan Singh saying about the inevitable bad times? Perhaps he was saying not to worry about the scams and the Lokpal Bill, etc; these things happen, and that Parliament and CAG ought not to get carried away. He was telling us that since he didn’t care about re-election in 2014, he was the right man to steer India through this “growth recession”, as the Americans call it; that he has the technical expertise, the administrative experience, and most importantly, the courage to take the hard decisions that India may need, that anyone else worried about returning to power might not be able to take. What he was saying was that young ministers are a nice idea, and they can even hitch along for the ride; but since times are getting tough, leave matters to us tough guys.

It is a laudably ballsy sentiment, no doubt. What the prime minister doesn’t seem to realise is that regardless of his determination, he stills needs political capital to carry the rest of the polity along (and his dismissive remarks about Parliament ignore the fact that the Lok Sabha is the only institution chosen by the citizens of India, which is why it is “supreme”). What he also doesn’t seem to realise is that all the recent scams — whether he is personally involved or not, directly or indirectly — have squandered his political capital. He can’t take anyone along because no one thinks he can do the job. It’s an impression that won’t go away even if he calls us Editors to his house every week from now till 2014.

Instead of analysis, what the country needs is a solution, because with the economy tanking, the last thing India needs is its current political uncertainty. You all know it’s there: the lack of faith in elected representatives has made issues out of the Lokpal Bill and heroes out of civil society activists such as Anna Hazare. There are rumblings of discontent in the DMK, which obviously seethes at the reports of Kanimozhi sitting in Tihar jail, weeping; and in other parties whose leaders have daughters who could easily join Kanimozhi in jail one of these days. And there are repeated calls to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi to take the plunge and lead the country out of the mire into which it is sinking deeper. It is a time of confusion.

Perhaps the only thing left to be done that would undoubtedly shake everyone up and energise the government is for Congress President Sonia Gandhi to take over from Dr Manmohan Singh. It’s obvious, isn’t it? She is, after all, head of the dominant party of the UPA. If any of the allies threaten to walk out, she can walk them straight into jail. Imagine: if she throws Sharad Pawar in jail, she’ll become the Queen of Anti-Corruption (after all, Anna Hazare earned his crusading credentials by opposing Pawar). Rahul Gandhi won’t evade ministerial responsibilities for he’ll want to help his mother steer the ship of government through the choppy waters of global recession. Sonia at the helm of government will boost the Congress’s chances in UP. And she can smoothly pass the baton to Rahul in 2014.

So, Soniaji, we beg you: rid us of this prime minister and instead of replacing him with one of the usual suspects, take matters into your own hands (before Sharad Pawar takes matters into his). After all, you have little to lose, and everything to gain.

The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, DNA, based in Mumbai