Manmohan Singh had his last day in the lok Sabha last week as Prime Minister. I can say last day because he has himself said he does not want to be Prime Minister for a third term. So he will not be in the Union Cabinet even if Congress and its get power after the 2014 lok Sabha polls. I can say that because I don’t believe a person will ever take a position in the Cabinet after he has been its head in any State or at the Centre.
I don’t know how he sees it, but I think the worst moment in Manmohan Singh’s political life was his oath-taking as Prime Minister. He began losing all that he had built for himself by the time the oath was complete and he stood at what was then the highest peak of his career. He could have gone higher from that moment, but it actually proved to be the highest point, for there was a graph of lows after that eroding chip after huge chip from the goodwill he had earned as a politician and a person till he became prime minister. Till he became Prime Minister, his work as an economist had been supremely successful in common public perception both in India and abroad. The world celebrated him as an economist-politician, putting him in the league of people have been known as excellent combinations of multiple noble pursuits — poet-saint or philosopher-king, to take two examples.
Singh was widely considered an astute economist who had done a service to the nation by applying his economics expertise to political decision making. He had unquestionable credentials for fairness, probity and integrity of character. It was a heady combination — honesty, efficiency, expertise and experience. This combination had delivered results in the form of India’s emergence as an economic power. This strength had given the country a place in the world. It had pulled India out of the chaos of bankruptcy that hung over it when Singh first found his place in full-fledged politics as Finance Minister of the nation in 1991.
It was a rare combination in any sphere of life, especially at the higher positions of officialdom that Singh held before his political debut. I am sure he can look back at these stints with satisfaction: chief economic adviser (1972-76) and secretary (77-80) in the finance ministry, RBI director (76-80) and Governor (82-85), deputy chairman of the Planning Commission (85-87) and adviser to the Prime Minster on economic affairs (90-91). It was this combination of personal and professional qualities and traits that brought him political power in 1991. This combination was ratified and ennobled in the public domain in India and abroad during and after Singh’s term as Finance Minister from 1991-96.
The guiding principle and cornerstone in this combination was honesty. It made Manmohan Singh special, turned many opponents into admirers, gave a potent aura to his soft-spoken words and made him look a healthy choice as Prime Minister when the job came very much as an offering to him in 2004. It looked like an offering to all that he had stood for and symbolised till then. It was fitting for a person who stood for highest levels of proven probity and professionalism to not run after the highest post of the nation but for the post to walk up to him.
It was a powerful message in favour of honesty, much needed in a national environment spanning all walks of life where dishonesty seemed to win endlessly. Honesty can be the best policy after all if an honest man can rise to become Prime Minister. For many, Singh was a man not just professing to be honest, but actually and really honest beyond any doubt over years spent in positions of power that can easily corrupt a person.
All that Singh had earned over the years was lost steadily in the years he was the Prime Minister. His efficiency, expertise and experience as an economist stand questioned. And a bigger question mark hangs over his honesty, the one thing that made me stand out in politics. As these question marks became bigger and bigger since 2004, he could have quit any time but he did not. That puts another question mark on him as a person and a politician.
It is all history now and the dust will settle down on his tenure. And when the dust settles down, history will be able to see much clearer why he did what and who he was. Manmohan Singh cannot say goodbye to Indian politics ever. For a Prime Minister for 10 years does not ever quit the history of his nation. Manmohan Singh will be there for a long, long time and people will visit him over and over again.
In schools, students are asked to write essays beginning “If I were the Prime Minister of India ...” The position of Prime Minister is considered to be the epitome of power and success. After seeing what successive prime ministers of India have gone through and the way they have been constrained by the position, it seems to me hardly a position of power and success. It is many times more a position of extreme helplessness. The Prime Minister can hardly do what he wants to. He is expected to call the shots, but everybody except him calls his shots. So if today someone asks me what I would do if I were asked to be the Prime Minister of India, just like Manmohan Singh was asked in 2004, I would say I would decline the offer.
If someone made the topic of the school essay very specific by making it “If I were Manmohan Singh ...” I would fill in the dots by writing “I would not be quite pleased today”. That’s my subjective view, but it objectively sums up the life of a person who has nothing much to lose now because he has lost much of whatever good he had gained in his life.
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