It is a commentary on the importance that the ruling Establishment attaches to the principle of parliamentary accountability that it took the near-collapse of the currency, plummeting growth rates and an economic crisis that refused to be brushed aside by the Queen Empress' imperious disdain of money, for the Prime Minister to realise that he owed the country something by way of an explanation.
That the PM deigned to unzip his lip-fastener at all was welcome. less comforting was what he had to say to a restless Rajya Sabha and a disturbed nation. In the past, crafty politicians have used their maunvrat for tactical ends. The Mahatma, arguably the most astute tactician of 20th century India, used it to both confuse and exasperate his adversaries; and his disciple Vinoba Bhave used it during the Emergency to send out a message that was widely regarded as unpalatable. The rationale behind Manmohan Singh's prolonged silence on the economic crisis that has engulfed India was equally considered. Judging from his intervention on Friday afternoon, the PM, it would seem, had chosen silence because he had nothing meaningful to say.
For the past fortnight, various explanations and finger-pointing exercises were undertaken by Cabinet Ministers to proclaim their innocence. First it was suggested that the Comptroller and Auditor General was the chief villain; then it was hinted that the judiciary had become too big for its boots; subsequently, the head of the US Federal Reserve was charged with promoting international iniquity by pursuing America's national interest; the tensions over Syria's use of chemical weapons against its own people was cited by media apologists to explain the downward slide of the rupee; and finally, Finance Minister P Chidambaram tried to pass the entire blame for the economic disaster on his predecessor who is in no position to answer back.
Unfortunately, none of these explanations enjoyed any market value. Matters were further complicated when the outgoing Reserve Bank Governor confessed that misplaced political priorities had contributed more to the mess than the self-serving Obama Administration. With the litany of excuses keeping pace with the rupee and dwindling in value, it was left to the PM to reach out for the brahmastra of lame excuses: The identification of the Opposition as the amalgam of KN Singh, Pran, Prem Chopra and Ajit — the villain to beat all villains.
In the past, the Finance Minister had tried to talk up the economy; on Friday, the Prime Minister attempted to talk up the Congress Party. It was an unlikely responsibility that he assumed but it was dictated by his role as the “custodian” of the family estate of the first family. Actually, he had no choice but to combine belligerence with banality.
Far from galvanising the nation with what Arun Shourie had once famously described as Indira Gandhi's “busloads of arguments,” the much-awaited passage of the Food Security Bill in the lok Sabha had not generated a mood change. On the contrary, the markets responded in panic at the prospect of a widening revenue deficit, a growing fiscal deficit and tightening liquidity leading to even higher interest rates. The Rupee was a visible casualty but read with the land Acquisition Bill, there was a broad consensus that India was shooting itself in the foot.
For a change, the attack was now focussed not on the non-custodian of the missing Coalgate files but the Queen Empress herself. In a rare show of insolence, even the media began to equate 'Sonia-nomics' with voodoo-nomics. The incoherence of the Government was no longer covered by the Official Secrets Act. It was clear to all that between the determination of someone to emerge as a new Mother Teresa and the self-image of someone else to be India's answer to John Maynard Keynes, the country was on the path of economic self-destruction. It is a different matter that the choice of role models suffered a transmission loss.
What was witnessed over the past few days was a bizarre role reversal: The economics of Mother Teresa and the morality of Keynes. That India was left underwhelmed doesn't need elaboration. On Friday night the Congress defenders of the faith had a torrid time trying to project the PM's indignant banalities as poetry. Apart from the biographer of Meena Kumari who announced at 9.45 pm that he was “hundred per cent with Sonia”, a deep scepticism greeted the assertion that it was Opposition that had soured India's fairy tale growth story
Not that the Opposition is as blameless as it claimed to be. The BJP leadership in the lok Sabha appeared to have interpreted the Westminster categorisation of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition a bit too literally during the debates on Food Security and land Acquisition Bills.
Equally, some tired veterans couldn't resist the temptation of appearing in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan with a demand for snap polls now. The subtext of demanding a poll before the challenger from Gujarat had been conferred the role of the shadow PM was there for all to see.
Maybe there was a larger good that emerged from last week's collusive massacre of India's short-term future. The old guard that has run the country from 1991 stood exposed for persisting with a mindset that is completely out of tune with the India of the 21st century. last week, the case for a dramatic rupture with archaic thinking and pedestrian shadow boxing was spelt out as never before. Now it is for the people to do the needful and herald a new beginning.