We can't judge Manmohan Singh from Baru's account alone

by MK Venu The Prime Minister of India does not exist in a political vacuum. He necessarily exercises his power within the constraints placed by the political system inside which he or she operates. And we all broadly agree that the political system has become utterly complex in a coalition form of government. If this basic fact is internalised, then it may appear that Sanjay Baru was probably a bit harsh on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whom he describes as having surrendered to political authority, at times displaying total lack of spine, during UPA1 and in a more pronounced way in UPA II. If you put Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the same stringent test as Baru subjects Manmohan Singh to, the result perhaps would be only marginally different! Take just a few instances where Vajpayee’s PMO looked no different from Singh’s. All you have to do is replace 10 Janpath with Nagpur headquarters of the RSS. Vajpayee, immediately after taking charge as PM in 1999, was not allowed to choose his finance minister by RSS. Instead, Yashwant Sinha was forced on him. How could the PM’s political authority be eroded virtually on day 1 of his tenure, you may well ask. Vajpayee was also asked by BJP’s alliance partner Shiv Sena to summarily sack Cabinet Minister Suresh Prabhu, who was doing a good job and had gained in popularity. Prabhu’s growing importance was not palatable to Bal Thakeray. Vajpayee, as Prime Minister, just had no say in the matter. Where was the PM’s famed authority? [caption id=“attachment_1479791” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manmohan Singh. AFP[/caption] More substantively, Vajpayee showed lack of spine when he wanted Modi removed after the 2002 Gujarat riots and Advani, backed fully by RSS, ensured the PM’s possible move was nipped in the bud. On such an important matter, which is said to have cost the BJP the 2004 elections, the political authority of the Prime Minister was not exercised. The RSS,through Swadeshi Jagran Manch, held sway on many economic policy questions under Vajpayee’s NDA. It stopped the large scale privatisation of PSUs, including those of oil companies, which the Vajpayee government was planning. Arun Shourie, as Minister for Disinvestment, managed to push through privatisation of a few PSUs but was not allowed to go any further. The larger point being made is both Vajpayee and Manmohan had their authority circumscribed by the political system within which they operated. Of course it can be argued that relative to Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee did put up far more resistance to outside pressures, especially from RSS. Singh possibly showed those qualities only when it came to pushing the nuclear deal. Also what is not so widely recognised is Manmohan Singh made mistakes that were entirely his own. For instance he publicly admitted to the fact that it was he alone who took the decision to withdraw pricing of spectrum from the Group of Minister’s domain and reverted it to the Dayanidhi Maran, who was Telecom Minister appointed at DMK’s behest. That was one decision which later came to haunt the UPA and created space for A.Raja to play havoc with spectrum pricing and distribution. Similarly, as the former coal secretary P.C.Parakh has now revealed in his book released yesterday, Manmohan Singh just did not show enough spine to overrule the Coal Ministers , Dasari Narayan Rao and Shibu Soren, both of whom actively worked against the proposal to auction coal mines. Of course, in this there was obvious collusion from all coal-bearing states, some run by BJP and other regional parties like the BJD. Manmohan cannot escape the charge of moral abdication in a systemic sense even though he protected himself legally and bureaucratically. That is not what a Prime Minister is supposed to do. Baru has also said that the party was given credit for MANREGA entirely. The truth is Manmohan Singh wanted NREGA implemented only in stages initially. It was pressure from the party, backed by the Left, that created a consensus for a universal implementation of NAREGA. To that extent, the party could take credit for NAREGA. Actually many important decisions in the sphere of economy or foreign policy were genuinely contested at an ideological level by the left group within the Congress. It will be very reductionist to attribute all ideological disagreements between party and government to Sonia trying to erode the PM’s authority. On many economic matters the Manmohan was simply in a minority in the Congress Core Group. Baru makes no bones about the fact that it is his subjective view of how Manmohan acted as a PM. Surely, there could be other views too from within the PMO which may come out in due course. The fact that the book praises Manmohan for the most part, especially his stewardship of the government inspite of all the constraints,also shows Baru’s split emotion toward the PM. Actually Baru’s frustration, even anger, comes out more because he was very close to Singh and therefore may have vicariously felt helpless when Singh capitulated to the party on many occasions. Baru’s relationship with the party had soured early on mainly because some senior journalists had reported back to top Congress leadership his antipathy to Sonia and her groupies.  Baru was probably a bit naive in trusting journos who are generally prone to carrying tales. Also, because of the initial misunderstanding, Baru never got to meet Sonia Gandhi personally. This would also have partially informed some of the judgements he makes about the party. Of course, the party leadership could have shown greater maturity in dealing with the PM’s media advisor who clearly was much more than a media advisor. It was not just Baru who felt exasperated by the PM caving in to the party time and again. One is told even the Prime Minister’s family and other close friends felt the same way when the PM gave the impression, at times, that he was merely continuing in office to complete his full second term. But then such emotions are also transient in nature because the bigger picture which history would record is that of Singh being the only PM other than Nehru to have completed two consecutive terms. A British statesman had once remarked that all significant political careers do end in failure. The term “failure” is possibly used more philosophically because it is near impossible to sustain popularity for long periods. It is only human to make mistakes, and big mistakes. Singh did end the first term on a high note. I remember a young Congress MP close to Rahul Gandhi telling me that during his rural campaign in Rajasthan in 2009, village Sarpanches had high praise for Singh’s sagacity. The division of labour between Singh and Sonia worked reasonably well until the Congress’ re-election. Actually, the division of labour worked well when the going was good. The knives came out when things began to go awry for the Congress - especially after inflation and corruption reared their heads together during the second term. It was then that Singh proved totally ineffectual and the Congress badly felt the need to have a political Prime Minister. Even if the party had considered this theoretically, the alternative to Singh was perhaps seen as too “political” for the party high command’s liking. But the party did try to make Pranab Mukhrjee de facto Deputy PM by making him head some 40 Group of Ministers looking at all important issues. It was like virtually heading the Cabinet on all critical policy issues. Singh all too willingly ceded power to Pranab. And on one occasion so much power was ceded to finance ministry that it dictated a PMO-initiated paper which sought to put the blame for the spectrum scam on former finance minister P. Chidambaram. Later Sonia rescued Chidambaram from the mess. By now the PM had fallen fairly silent on most issues. That is when all the jokes about PM opening his mouth only when he went to a dentist started surfacing. Indeed it is a fate no PM would desire. But then, as I said earlier, history may be kinder to Singh as his 10 years, taken together, can be defended on merit.