The stillness at PM House

The stillness at PM House

Manmohan Singh seems curiously absent when key decisions are made

T.V.R. Shenoy

An acquaintance of Dr Manmohan Singh once asked me: “Why do you think there are so many guards around Race Course Road?” I mumbled something about security, slightly annoyed over the flippancy of the question. “Wrong!” came the triumphant response, “They are there to keep the poor man from running away!”
Is there any prime minister to whom the adjective ‘poor’ has been applied so frequently? Nobody pretended Manmohan Sing possessed any political authority when he was asked to move into Race Course Road, but there was a general consensus that he was an essentially decent man who could also keep the machinery of government oiled. The past five weeks have cast a question mark over even that claim.

When King Gyanendra dismissed the Deuba ministry our prime minister and his external affairs minister were, by Manmohan Singh’s own admission, taken unaware. Even as New Delhi was digesting the news reports, arrived of another unconstitutional coup — this time in Panaji. Governor Jamir had kept the prime minister and the home minister out of the loop. Next, it was Ranchi’s turn to grab the headlines thanks to its enterprising — if not mathematically blessed — governor, Syed Sibtey Razi. The Opposition had alerted Manmohan Singh and Shivraj Patil that mischief was afoot; their helplessness was evident despite the 48-hour advance warning.

Everyone agrees that neither Manmohan Singh nor Shivraj Patil planned the smash-and-grab raid in Jharkhand. They are honourable men, and they have tried — albeit after a nudge from the president — to repair the damage. It is not their personal honour, however, which is the issue here but the fact that they are political lightweights, mere minnows in a sea ruled by sharks. Why would any politician worth the name bother with a prime minister who has never made it to the Lok Sabha, or with a home minister who lost his own seat in the last General Election?

It is a short step from polite indifference to brutal contempt. The home minister assured the Opposition last Thursday — March 3 — that Syed Sibtey Razi was all set to ask Arjun Munda to form a ministry. The governor of Jharkhand invited Shibu Soren barely two hours later. I do not believe Shivraj Patil was trying to mislead the BJP leaders who spoke to him (what would he gain by doing so?). The only possibility, then, is that someone else had fed the home minister a piece of rubbish, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Just as the prime minister reputedly fell for King Gyanendra’s bald declaration that he had no intention of dumping the Deuba ministry...

The foreign policy establishment’s latest excuse is that the new Research & Analysis Wing chief took charge even as the royal coup in Kathmandu was taking place. Yet there had been no dearth of warnings, not least reports in the foreign and Indian media. Delhi’s being taken by surprise was not a failure of intelligence, it was a failure of common sense.

India can survive a malicious prime minister and home minister. We came through the Emergency, didn’t we? But I am not so certain that we can sail through if important ministers are weak or easily manipulated. That is what I call the administrative case against Manmohan Singh, but there is also a moral charge to be laid at his door.

The prime minister’s only political asset is his reputation for probity. The Prime Minister’s Office under Manmohan Singh is, arguably, cleaner than ever before. (I say nothing about its being efficient or effective!) Yet events in Goa and in Jharkhand have succeeded in doing the impossible, they have cast a shadow on Manmohan Singh’s ethics.

Whether or not the prime minister had inside information on the attempted coups in Panaji and in Ranchi is actually a secondary issue. (Although he could have had no illusions about why Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and Subodh Kant Sahay flew to Ranchi after the antics in Goa.) I want to raise a more fundamental question: why didn’t Manmohan Singh publicly condemn the attempted coup in Ranchi after the news broke?

A symbolic gesture would have sufficed. All the president did was to summon Syed Sibtey Razi to Delhi. Everyone got the message without the president having to say a single word. Why didn’t the honourable Manmohan Singh and the decent Shivraj Patil have the moral courage to take the same step?

Ultimately, it is for Manmohan Singh to justify Syed Sibtey Razi’s and S.C. Jamir’s conduct to Parliament, in fact to India at large. I have no idea how he proposes to do so. We would not accept it as an excuse if a chowkidar told us, “Please don’t sack me, after all I didn’t commit the robbery!” Should we expect a lesser standard of a prime minister?

This is a prime minister who seems to be curiously absent when important decisions are being made or defended. His ministry ignored reports from Nepal until it was too late. He wrung his hands over Goa. When the Prime Minister’s Office reportedly rebuked the Intelligence Bureau for its ‘failure’ to track the five independent Jharkhand MLAs, it may have been the only response taken independent of Rashtrapati Bhavan’s hints. (I say nothing of the morality of using the Intelligence Bureau to hound the Opposition.)

Weep, if you will, for Nepal’s deposed Sher Bahadur Deuba and Sariska’s vanished tigers, yet spare a thought too for Race Course Road’s dismal Singh!



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