One of India’s most battered and bruised premier, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has finally decided that it is time to retire from active politics. At the ripe age of 81, Singh has perhaps taken the most crucial decision of his life after presiding over arguably one of the most corrupt administrations in India’s political history.
And yet, he remains the man who did everything in his capacity to extricate his motherland from the brink of economic bankruptcy in the early 1990s, which was hailed as one of the best global economic success story. But did he dig his own grave by not giving up the job in 2009, after the end of his first innings as the prime minister? Notwithstanding his unconvincing assertion of not being unduly worried about the worst moments of his premiership, perhaps in hindsight, this illustrious economist will rue his inability to resist the lure of office for a long time to come.
After all, his second term is replete with a series of big-ticket scandals ranging from Commonwealth Games scam, telecommunication spectrum allocation irregularities to coal block allocation illegalities in which not only his Cabinet colleagues but also the Prime Ministers’ Office was dragged. Surely, during his lonely struggle at the top, Singh must have contemplated to quit and catch up with his passion of reading and writing on more than one occasion to escape the ignominy of being stamped the most corrupt prime minister that the country has ever produced.
May be his unflinching loyalty to the Congress prevented him from taking the unscheduled plunge into retirement and instead continue as a “fall guy” to shield the party high command, especially Rahul Gandhi, who has been calling the shots for quite some time now. This was adequately reflected in his generous endorsement of the attempt to project Rahul as the prime ministerial candidate.
Even though a sober Singh was all praise for Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s wholehearted support throughout his stint, the leaderships’ subtle pressure on an octogenarian prime minister to needlessly reiterate Rahul’s entitlement to prime ministerial candidacy just four months before his departure smacks of dynastic hegemony. This political blunder will give enough ammunition to the opposition to corner the Congress, which has been functioning under the aegis of the Nehru-Gandhi family since 1978 except for a brief lull in between. In spite of all the criticism for embracing a family-run structure, the Congress party did offer sufficient internal democratic space — both formal and informal — to the non-dynastic members who were also encouraged to express their supportive as well as dissentient viewpoints. Even the late Indira Gandhi, with all her authoritarian trait, was very particular in ensuring that the collective decision-making format within the party is not eroded.
In fact, every chief of the Congress representing the dynasty have never ever tried to undermine the sanctity of the institutional decision-making bodies. Unfortunately, a politically immature Rahul has unwittingly dealt a body blow to the party’s plinth by creating a parallel power structure and running the century-old institution in corporate style. How can a young man, who is yet to recognize that a vast majority of Indians continues to identify with rustic politics, take on a formidable opposition effectively in a make-or-break election?
Surely, Prime Minister Singh was not honest in his analysis of the Congress vice president’s political acumen. Even Congress members will vouch in private that the party will suffer a rude jolt if a charismatic Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is not pushed to the forefront immediately. A resolute Priyanka not only remains the dark horse of the 2014 big election but also a potent tool to prevent an inglorious Congress downslide.
Many believe Singh’s inability to contain in-house corruption has affected not only the ruling Congress’ political fortune adversely but also his personal credibility to a large extent. The same man who was a blue-eyed boy of the middle class and India Inc. till a few years back stumbled at every step and earned a bad reputation for himself so much so that even Ratan Tata rued the aggravation of leadership deficit. Singh’s rise and fall from grace has indeed been equally meteoric. Even in the most vulnerable moments, India has reposed faith on the mild mannered low-key politician-cum- economist by giving him a resounding mandate to rule for two consecutive terms.
This despite the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s continuous propaganda drive to project the soft-spoken Singh as a weak personality, incapable of leading as diverse a nation as India. But little did the citizens realize that he would fail to seize the public-given opportunity in transforming India radically.
While accepting that compulsion of coalition politics — best described by British politician Harriet Harman as a political prenup — has restricted Singh’s ability to maneuver, one must also concede that he has shown utter incompetency in managing the governance in his second term. Such is the resentment against the Congress-led government that an array of radical policy initiatives and welfare measures for the underprivileged has virtually gone unnoticed. But why did Singh lost ground midway, having dealt with the nation’s myriad problems efficaciously in the initial days? He simply failed to exert his political authority appropriately. Unfortunately, Singh will never get another opportunity to acknowledge candidly that he did have a sense of moral responsibility to the illegalities happening around him but lacked the power to act authoritatively.
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