It’s tough, I guess, to be prime minister if you have someone looking over your shoulder all the time. Already, the Congress party is making noises about the need for Rahul Gandhi to take charge, insisting that in a young country like India, where half the population is below 35 years of age, you need a younger prime minister.
Truth is, Manmohan Singh is touching 77 or 78, while young Rahul has crossed his 40th birthday. (You could argue that that’s not very young, but in our part of the world if you haven’t tied the knot, I suppose, all’s fair in love and language.)
On the face of it, India’s economy is growing at a respectable 7-8 per cent, especially when you compare it with the US, which is verging on a default, or the UK where growth continues to be a meagre 1.5 per cent. The monsoons have been good so far and the granaries are full (overflowing, actually). From being a recipient of western handouts in the sixties to handing out cheques to Afghanistan and Africa — $500 million each in the last month — India’s self-esteem quotient has come a long way.
Why, then, does the nagging persist within? There is a strong sense that all is not right with the republic. The Congress-led government has refused to lead and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led opposition has failed its own imagination. The left parties, whose biggest service was to restrain the government’s market-fuelled instincts in Manmohan Singh’s last government, have been more or less marginalised.
Despite his interaction with the country’s top editors this week, the PM was frank about the challenges India faces, from the economy to Maoism to foreign policy initiatives in the neighbourhood.
Still, the impression one came away with from reading the transcript of the interaction was not that the prime minister lacked either courage or ability or personal integrity — despite the sense of dissonance that prevails nationally, Manmohan Singh continues to be on top of the charts — but that he seemed unable to put things into first gear.
Look at the neighbourhood, for instance. There is the comment that as prime minister, he “would love to visit Pakistan, I was born there… I would especially like to go to Panja Sahib where my parents took me to be named”. Manmohan Singh goes on to add that Pakistan hasn’t done enough on the terror front.
The implication: What’s the point of going?
This is an apt analysis. After the Mumbai 2008 attacks, which changed India in so many ways, the visit of an Indian prime minister to Pakistan will carry so much weight — or baggage, as the case may be — that if Islamabad doesn’t deal with the Mumbai attackers in a serious way, everything else will be on hold.
My point is simple: What prevents the political leadership in India and Pakistan from changing the contours of the game? If Islamabad can rediscover some of its steel vis-à-vis Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, at the risk of being facetious, Delhi will be ready to build a steel plant.
Every student of history knows that leaders succeed because they focus on one thing at a time. They don’t let the scenery distract you.
Manmohan Singh made his mark when he unleashed India’s entrepreneurial instincts in 1991. The problem is, this is 2011.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 5th, 2011.
COMMENTS (12)
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good comment govind. he is in fact not real PM in the sense he is just de jure and defacto is sonia gandhi. she wants majority in lok sabha so that she can go ahead with her good or bad work. PM is just a sanitiser. it is not just 22 months corruption in high places but this is there since UPA1 or earlier in NDA rule too. All are equally corrupt. Now thanks to judicial activism, skuls are tumbling from cub boards. This man has not personally benefited anything, so he is clean but doing all dirty jobs of his mentor, so we brand him 'clean' else not. today governments and administration think under public policy that politicians can do anything against poor people who are in fact sovereign as rich and wealthy cannot qualify in the same way as poor as citizens, as rich and wealthy manipulate the governments and hence we call rich and wealthy as manipulators of power in the hands of politicians, at the cost of poor. politicians quote like devil quoting scriptures Benjamin Franklin statement 'they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety' by quoting out of context his statement, as even great researchers from Oxford also talk in that way so the education itself perverse today and politicians go to elite schools and read things and apply out of context. see for example Benjamin Franklin statement in which century he uttered no body thinks but just applies in supposed to be matured democracies of today say 21st century even by misreading constitutions to just support politicians great untenable policies which can just be over ruled by constitutional courts under their inherent powers. the writers forgot what is 'inherent powers' of constitutional courts. these inherent powers are used when one misreads ' separation of powers ' of Montesque. so that is the problem for all ills democracies are facing today. u have a lot of perverse researchers produced or supported by politicians so u have to put up fight please.. in the similar way this MM< Singh is handicapped!
Hi Balakrishnan,
I appreciate your thinking but about 30-35% of Indians think alike. That is they express the concern and sympathy to PM. According to me and if you consider justice This is a political ans social crime, being neutral and staying in powerful office. Who is the PM of India (manmohan singh himself) who came to know the common wealth and 2g scam much earlier he by himself and who allowed these ppl to stay in office to complete the crime again he himself how can people of India say he is non-corrupt and clean. He did not touched the knife and blood but did the crime of killing equally to democracy of India.
Realize to justify properly rather than he was professor and well educated and economist. He Damaged the most to India as PM than any other in the past that is the felt truth by each indian on this date.
yr comment seems good. problem is every where in every country in the world as every where rotten eggs like rotten apples basket where one or two good apples may be.
Mechanism is the people as voters rise up to cleanse the system every where, like Anna Hazare...though such movements may not be equal to task at hand, but some beginning to motivate good people like you, as i am useless as i am old at 70 sir!
public awareness is very important to motivate people and that will only salvage from the rot.
u can start such great campaigns. one thing calling one dirty we cannot improve but we have to create really clean people to work on these massive projects may be without seking any return, if that happens, probably that good day may dawn please.
PM personally clean but he is caught between devil and deep sea!.
In Olden days we had probably good administrations, one such ethics says if the leader (King) remains silent over corruption or damage to his subject he is equally punishable as the criminal. The PM remained silent for more than 18 to 22 months in 2 major corruptions india has never seen before 1. Kalmadi and 2. A.Raja.
What is the use of such a PM, that he will uphold the values of Democracy and soveriegnity of India. Now comes Yuvraj (Price) of the party the spokes persons ( Digvijay singh and the whole media in general) gather to push him to gain the mass of the people to fly to parliament saying "Youth and Young thinking" whereas he himself is violator of law in several cases, in Boston Airport he was held for hours (days) due to illegal possession of high-valued currency and the police here didn't care who he is.
He and his mother do not have much affinity to the people of India, even they pose to have never shown such commitment as they belong to the people of India other than dramatic situations to fight elections. Can Gandhi;s name carriers behave ethical upto the gandhian values in real to benefit the common man of India ?