A potshot a day defines limits of Manmohan's Sultanate

It was derisively said of the 18th century Mughal ruler Shah Alam II (“emperor of the world”) that his Sultanate stretched all the way from Delhi to Palam. Within that minuscule empire, which epitomised his vastly shrunken influence, the SultanShahi used to enjoy strutting about. It appears that Manmohan Singh, whose own administrative authority too stands greatly diminished today, may actually have reason to envy the vastness of Shah Alam’s jurisdictional influence. [caption id=“attachment_5817” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“P. Chidambaram’s comments on Manmohan Singh’s pronounced silence contribute to a steady whittling of the Prime Minister’s authority . B Mathur/Reuters”]  [/caption] With each passing day, the potshots against the Prime Minister just keep getting louder, whittling down his authority steadily and reinforcing the image of him as a lame-duck leader. The latest of them comes from Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who said on Sunday that it might perhaps help for Manmohan Singh to open his mouth from time to time and show signs of life. Appearing on a television talk show, Chidambaram was asked why the Prime Minister had not spoken up on the ongoing debate over the Lokpal bill, and particularly the discussion over whether the Prime Minister ought to come under the anti-corruption agency’s ambit. Chidambaram’s response:  “Well, that is a question I cannot answer. You should put it to the PM. But yes, I acknowledge that lots of people would like the prime minister to step up to the plate, so to say, and speak more often. But that is the style of the person.” For all its innocuousness,  Chidambaram’s response wasn’t a casual, throwaway remark. It appears calculated to feed the prevailing stereotypical image of Manmohan Singh  as a too-timid leader who isn’t seen or heard often enough in the public domain to inspire confidence in his leadership. Coming on top of Digvijaya Singh’s subtle broadside against him – by tangentially projecting Rahul Gandhi  as Prime Minister-in-waiting – Chidambaram’s remark is searing. Evidently, after Digvijaya Singh’s public comment about Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh was provoked enough to “throw a minor tantrum.” Swapan Dasgupta writes: “The Prime Minister apparently expressed his profound displeasure…  (He) was agitated that this statement, read with Diggy Raja’s earlier sniper attacks on the Government and its senior Ministers, implied that Prime Minister didn’t enjoy the full backing of his party and was running a lame duck administration.” That tag – of being a lame-duck  leader – has haunted Manmohan Singh for months now, and in a rare interaction with the media earlier this year, he pointedly addressed just that charge. “Whatever some people may say, that we are a lame-duck government, that I am a lame-duck prime minister, we take our job very seriously," Singh said in February. But the mere fact that a Prime Minister has been reduced to throwing tantrums to fend off potshots against him from within his own ranks points to the sobering realisation that unlike with Shah Alam, this SultanShahi’s empire doesn’t stretch even from his South Block office to the North Block seat of the home ministry. (An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Shah Alam ruled in the 15th Century.)