Ariza | Politics | 13 August 2011, 7:52pm
In the first year of UPA-I I received a mail from an admirer of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.” Look at this resume” it said and went on to list his unbelievable series of achievements. Professor, Delhi School of Economics, and Governor, Reserve Bank of India was amongst them. “He is your prime-minister” it said down at the end, “most qualified man for the job!.” Remember, this was when America had elected George W Bush once and was all set to elect him again. It made me feel proud in comparison and somewhere unsaid was this feeling that in its own bungling way the Indian Democratic system worked well. Which Board of Directors wouldn’t employ Dr. Manmohan Singh? The miracle was that most of our country, including folks who couldn’t read, somehow democratically ended up with a man best qualified to be the prime-minister.
And yet if we were to have elections tomorrow, I would gladly vote the prime-minister out. This is in part a about my own disillusionment.
It couldn’t have been a better equation. An economist, the scholar, would be prime-minister and take care of running the country. Behind him, keeping him away from the rot of politics would be madam, a generational politician from the country’s most political family. He would draft us laws perfect and balanced and she would ensure they pass through the labyrinth of political motivations/demands. He would choose qualified ministers and she would get them the political backing. How ideal it all seemed! And like ideals it possessed a way of screwing reality in, painfully twisting it on its way down. There was never a neat division of labor, instead a muddled force of ambition and intention. For example:Do we really know who – madam or PM – was behind the fateful 9th December 2009 T-decision?
Why do ministers talk to 10 Janpath when they resign?
Yes we know it was the prime-minister who decided to go through with the nuclear deal but did he also decide the political implications – of left leaving UPA I?
There is enough commentary to argue one way or the other but isn’t confusion a rule than just an extreme exception?
What is surprising is that even the council of ministers seem just as confused. Who grants favors?
This is the result of confusion, not the reason and any first year graduate will tell you that confusion at the top of management means muddled mess at the bottom.
Walking into the mayhem of Lehman brothers in 2008 I, along with the rest of the country, was secure. India’s collective consciousness recognized that an economist was the prime minister: His team – Montex Singh Ahuwalia, Dr. C Rangarajan, Chidambaram etc.In 1930’s FDR had to appoint JM Keynes to help solve the economic mess of his country. India in 2008, didn’t need to, because our JM Keynes was the prime minister! I expected us to weather the storm, yes, and perhaps even to assert ourselves on the global map. If we could escape the recession we can also teach the rest of the world something about economics – how to manage expectations and needs with limited resources. For a while it seemed like a success story. But dig a little deeper and you will see the contradiction
– Yes, we grew even when the world was shrinking, but isn’t that expected from a country a billion strong?– Why couldn’t we assert ourselves as an economic model to be emulated by other developing countries?
– Why are we still dictated by worldly whims? Money in when their economy is booming and out when it is downgraded?
– And who is counting the inflation? Is our growth only a result of conspicuous consumption? Or is there any real improvement in efficiencies? Where is the infrastructural growth to support high GDP?
It is our best economic team at the helm. Very much like the Indian cricket team – the best team in the world who can lose an entire series. Best teams simply don’t do that.
I wouldn’t be a true Hyderabadi if I didn’t mention the T- problem. Don’t get me wrong, at this point I am neither for nor against the T- decision. What I am against is uncertainty. I believe the problem would never have defaulted to national government had YSR been alive. He was a decisive leader and his fateful death and the subsequent vacuum it created meant that bickering local leaders, like school children, looked north, to the teacher, for a settlement. But any good teacher would know that without an intrinsic acceptance of a resolution, any decision is just an excuse for further bickering. Dr. Manmohan Singh was a professor and by all judgments a very good teacher. Any scholar will tell you that the absolute worst thing to do in a state of confusion is vacillate. Yet, our PM, an eminent scholar vacillated first by granting and then refusing T-state.
It gets worse. Now there are two sets of congress-men for every issue. One for and the other against. Who needs an opposition when such perfect balance exists within the government?
Here is my analysis of the situation: The situation is a political problem and the prime-minister is not (political). We knew this limitation when he became PM but we hoped that years of being a bureaucrat had taught him an instinctive understanding of politics: lessons that require deft sidestepping of minefields while decisively handling cattle. A leader must be able to carry his team through tough unacceptable decisions because in the end a team divided is a team dead. By allowing the festering of two opinions in the same arena he has armed both. And any good teacher will tell you that giving two children knives to solve their mutual differences can never have a single winner.
There is absolutely no doubt that our PM is a clean man. And yet it is also true that under his premiership the country’s corruption numbers have gone out of the page. And both are not mutually exclusive. Let me illustrate in a different way:
In the movie On the Waterfront Marlon Brando confronts his older brother in the car in a memorable scene. This brother had asked Marlon to lose a boxing match because his boss has money riding on Marlon’s opponent. Shocked and hurt Marlon looses the match and is a broken man ever after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeVq1e6JKlw
“You were my brother Charlie… “he rages in the car scene “I could have been something.” Left unsaid is the question of responsibility. Wasn’t the brother more responsible to Marlon than be loyal to a boss? In the end what was the right thing to do – be loyal or be right?
I have heard the PM talk of coalition dharma in terms that suggest loyalty even if it means backing the corrupt. But what is more important – loyalty or country?
I still think the PM is a great man. If I ever get a chance to meet him, I will tell my grand-children about it. But despite that impressive resume I believe that he is not the right man for the job anymore. This is my disillusionment and it is a sad story.
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