O P I N I O N S

last word: Manmohan Singh
Hoping history will be kinder to him
Here was a man who had risen from a small village, Gah, now in Pakistan, right to the top of the power pyramid. His two terms as Prime Minister placed him in history books for achievements that were aplenty. But these will be haunted by the failures of his government and the taint all around him.
By Roopinder Singh
The BJP swept him out of power even as his bags were packed well before the poll results came in. One of the things he was most concerned about was which books to take with him to his new house.

Touchstones
The ultimate test is only the work done
We were all complicit in dragging the country to the miserable levels it had reached in the last few years of the UPA’s rule. At a time when a new leader invites us all to participate in nation-building, let us begin by honestly owning up to our responsibilities.
Ira Pande
Political pundits, psephologists, academicians and the media have already given us several points to ponder over the last many weeks about how to interpret the results of the momentous 2014 Lok Sabha elections. So who am I, with none of the above qualifications, to write on this subject?

last word: Manmohan Singh
Hoping history will be kinder to him
Here was a man who had risen from a small village, Gah, now in Pakistan, right to the top of the power pyramid. His two terms as Prime Minister placed him in history books for achievements that were aplenty. But these will be haunted by the failures of his government and the taint all around him.
By Roopinder Singh

The BJP swept him out of power even as his bags were packed well before the poll results came in. One of the things he was most concerned about was which books to take with him to his new house. He continued working till the last day, and said he had no plans to take any holiday once he demitted office. Why, his family remembers him taking a holiday only once in his life!

Sandeep Joshi

“I owe everything to this country, this great land of ours where I, an underprivileged child of Partition, was empowered enough to rise and occupy high office. It is both a debt that I will never be able to repay and a decoration that I will always wear with pride,” said the man who had led the nation for the past 10 years in his address as Prime Minister. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” said observers, who held him responsible for the many scams that dominated the discourse of the last years of his term.

Here was a man who had risen from a small village, Gah, now in Pakistan, right to the top. His two terms as Prime Minister have placed him in history books. His achievements were many, but they were eclipsed in recent years by the failures of his government to deliver, and corruption charges.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s journey is one of a hardworking and brilliant person who left his mark because of his talent in academics, as a bureaucrat and as a policy-maker. It is one that took him to Hindu College, Amritsar; Cambridge and Oxford universities, as a student; brought him back to Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Delhi School of Economics as a teacher. He married Gursharan Kaur and they had three daughters, each of who has distinguished herself in her chosen field — Upinder Singh as a historian, Daman Singh as a writer and Amrit Singh as a public-spirited lawyer in the US.

He held important positions, including Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, Secretary in the Finance Ministry, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Adviser to Prime Minister of India on Economic Affairs, Chairman of the Union Public Services Commission, and Chairman of the University Grants Commission. In each position he left his mark, but what really stood out was his performance as Finance Minister in the Narasimha Rao government, when he introduced reforms that became the basis of India’s growth story.

Formidable credentials

A gentle smile and a soft voice marked his presence, along with formidable credentials as an economist and a political leader who had steered the country’s growth story in various capacities. World leaders warmly acknowledged his wisdom and sagacity, sometimes much more than his peers did at home.

Brought in by Congress President Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister in 2004, he found himself comfortable with an unusual power sharing arrangement with her. Mostly they worked in close cooperation with each other, even as the government had a good run with a high rate of growth, which grew from 7 per cent to a high of 9.6 per cent in 2007. This placed him in a good position when he notably dug in his heels as he pushed for the civilian nuclear deal with the United States, something that caused a rift with the Left.

Later, the economy took a hit worldwide with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the chaos that it brought. The terrorist attacks on Mumbai shook the nation, yet the UPA returned to power in 2009, a win largely credited to Manmohan Singh’s stewardship of the government.

Empowering Acts

Domestically, two initiatives, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Right to Information Act, empowered people. NREGA, later named after Mahatma Gandhi, has not been an unqualified success; but the efficacy of RTI in fighting corruption has been proved repeatedly. RTI activists scored many hits as they searched for wrongdoings, and ironically, many a scam that was to haunt the Manmohan Singh government was dug out by RTI activism. The Right to Education Act brought in a commitment to free compulsory education for children and the National Food Security Act completed the safety net for the poor.

On the foreign policy front, he continued the policies of his successors. While the nuclear deal with the US was the high point, the US was upset with the clauses that were later put into it due to the Opposition’s pressure in India. With China, he built bridges, and on Pakistan, he took a positive stance, which nearly yielded results, till the Mumbai terrorist attacks derailed the process. He sought better relations with neighbours, but found himself stifled by coalition partners, like it happened when Mamata Banerjee scuttled the Teesta water sharing treaty with Bangladesh, or giving in to the allies in Tamil Nadu and boycotting the Commonwealth Summit in Colombo. Widely respected internationally, Manmohan Singh forged good personal equations with many world leaders. He took particular pains to improve the relationship with China and Japan.

Scam stains

However, back home, scams dogged his government. Beginning with the Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai (2008); the 2G spectrum scam (2011); the irregularities in the auction of coal blocks (2012); Sunanda Pushkar and Sashi Tharoor’s involvement in the IPL (2013); or the Railways job scam later the same year, headline after headline highlighted the growing corruption and the government’s failure to curb it.

In defence, a former Air Chief was accused of involvement in a deal to buy helicopters, another senior officer was said to have played a dubious role in the Army’s purchase of trucks, there were allegations about kickbacks in a submarine deal, but all this was eclipsed by the manner in which a serving Army chief sued the government. It also eclipsed the giant strides that India took in space, including a mission to the moon, the introduction of the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, various aircraft and the raising of two mountain divisions to counter the Chinese threat.

UPA II will also be remembered for a virtual paralysis of Parliament in which the Opposition successfully stalled a number of the government’s initiatives, and kept the focus firmly on the scams and other shortcomings of the government. Even as he stood out like a lotus in the morass that the UPA found itself in, many people pointed out that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the person under whose watch all this was happening. The Opposition had a field day calling him a weak PM.

Personal probity

Media shy he might be, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struck a good rapport with many leaders. His gentle smile and a good memory helped him build on relationships with many people. The unimpeachable reputation for integrity and personal probity that he enjoyed remained unscathed.

“History will be kinder to me than the contemporary media,” the Prime Minister had famously said in a Press conference. This may well be true. Even as he the countdown started to his demitting office, a number of articles came out praising the man and his work.

It is said that in India we remember strong leaders. This soft-spoken leader’s stewardship cooled the communal temperatures, got India out of the nuclear winter, brought about a degree of inclusive growth, all within the constraints of coalition politics, which ultimately brought him so much grief. Yes the government he led had many scams, it failed to deliver the kind of development and growth that Indians expected it to do, there was a perception of policy paralysis, and the very voters that had brought in UPA II demolished the Congress through their vote.

Now that his bags are packed, and he has demitted office, Manmohan Singh may well be relieved that the gaze of contemporary media will now focus on the next incumbent of 7 Race Course Road.

Touchstones
The ultimate test is only the work done
We were all complicit in dragging the country to the miserable levels it had reached in the last few years of the UPA’s rule. At a time when a new leader invites us all to participate in nation-building, let us begin by honestly owning up to our responsibilities.
Ira Pande

Political pundits, psephologists, academicians and the media have already given us several points to ponder over the last many weeks about how to interpret the results of the momentous 2014 Lok Sabha elections. So who am I, with none of the above qualifications, to write on this subject? The simple answer is: I am an Indian who cares deeply for what we have done to our country in the name of democracy, secularism and social justice. The distortion of these basic principles has not been sudden or maliciously propagated by one individual or one party, so let us not start demonising the Congress party or the Nehru-Gandhi family alone. We were all complicit in dragging the country to the miserable levels it had reached in the last few years of the UPA’s rule. At a time when a new leader invites us all to participate in nation-building, let us begin by honestly owning up to our responsibilities.

Modi needs to be judged now for what he will do, not what we believe he is. PTI

The change in the political climate can best be illustrated if we make an analogy between the recent political tsunami and what happened just a few months ago in Kedarnath. For years, we were warned by experts that deforestation, mindless construction, mining and the damming of rivers were altering a fragile eco-system. No one paid heed and the result was a tragic disaster that destroyed human and animal lives, livelihoods and the pristine Himalayan glacial terrain of that region.

In the same way, for years economists and political scientists had predicted that the country could no longer afford the profligacy of doles and subsidies. Did anyone pay heed? Add to this, corruption, arrogance and indifference to the real needs of the poor and you can understand why the Congress party stands decimated, much like the Himalayan landscape around Kedarnath.

But why blame the political parties alone? Look at all of us, India’s so-called elite, who have long seceded from the republic. We live in gated communities, generate our own power and take care of our own security. Many of us prefer to holiday abroad and invest our ill-gotten money in Swiss banks. Our children do not study in government schools nor do we shop for bargains in local subzi mandis any more. Oh no, the malls and delis stock our kind of food and drink. We speak to each other in English and titter at those who cannot match our posh accents. In short, we have no idea how the other half lives and dies. And when a hideous crime, like Nirbhaya’s rape, shakes us out of our cocoons, we light a candle, sign public petitions floated by others, write a few maudlin lines in the social media network and consider our duty done. Some, like Rahul Gandhi, do not even make that minimal gesture of sympathy. Small wonder then that he almost lost his pocket borough this time and looked gob-smacked when he came out of his fortress to ‘take responsibility’ for his party’s defeat. That he could smile as he did so will always haunt me.

Come now to the men who have shaken the very roots of this power structure: Modi, Kejriwal and Amit Shah. First Modi, a man vilified and hounded by every agency that you can name and who stood his ground without blinking, secure in the knowledge that you cannot fool the public all the time. His phenomenal energy as he held rallies and roadshows all over the country, his fantastic oratory and the manner in which he connected with his audiences even in areas where Hindi is not spoken or understood, cannot but be admired. He needs to be judged now for what he will do, not by what we have been persuaded to believe he is. Kejriwal stands humbled today but let us never forget that he took on a corrupt system and pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes. His mistake was that, unlike Modi, he allowed the first few signs of support to go to his head and took his eyes off the road. A crash was all that he could expect and got. The final hurrah must surely go to the inscrutable and quiet Amit Shah, who came to UP and revived a party network that had all but vaporised. Above all, he understood the grammar of youthful aspiration and concluded that caste, community and dynasty had no place in the new political lexicon. He spoke in Hindi — a language that Rahul and his mother, the only two to have won in UP, can at best read in Roman English. If only Rahul Gandhi’s feisty challengers — Kumar Vishwas and Smriti Irani — had pooled their energies, who knows what Rahul would have had to face.

So, as we get ready to greet a new Parliament, let us promise to shed both pride and prejudice.