Dr Manmohan Singh remained a gentleman, a gentle man, from the start to the close of his life.
NEW DELHI: And so, Manmohan Singh is no longer with us. He went in the manner he had spent the whole of a highly eventful life. Quietly, entirely without fanfare or fuss. And yet it will be remembered that for ten years he held by far the most consequential job in India, that of Prime Minister. He was termed by some of his admirers as an “accidental” Prime Minister. He was anointed PM by Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi in 2004 and again in 2009 in the same post until the defeat of the Congress Party at the hands of the BJP led by Narendra Modi in 2014. For five years, Manmohan Singh had been Finance Minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, who had himself been chosen by Sonia Gandhi for the job soon after the assassination of Rajiv by the LTTE in 1991. As Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh had seen up close the torment that Rao went through after incurring the ire of his former patron, and how several reforms that were in the pipeline of policy at the PMO had to be aborted because of the opposition caused by those who opposed him, Arjun Singh being the most vocal. Ironically, among the principal reasons why some members of the Congress Party opposed Rao was the then PM’s backing of Manmohan Singh, and the reforms he had brought about. Together with Rao, Manmohan Singh rescued the Indian economy from the edge of disaster. Rao ignored his FM’s detractors and continued to back Manmohan Singh, trusting that he could ensure that fiscal policies were set in place that could set the economy on a high growth trajectory. Manmohan Singh never forgot the debt of gratitude he owed Narasimha Rao for making him the FM from relative obscurity, and for backing him for the full five years of his term. However, practical as always, the not so accidental Prime Minister understood realpolitik as well as he did economics, and determined never to repeat the path of Narasimha Rao by incurring the wrath of his political patron, a vow he kept to the end. Better some reforms, better some major measures, than no reform, no measure at all, just political firefighting must have been the calculation.
Many say that such acceptance of the authority of the Congress supremo was a wise choice on Dr Manmohan Singh’s part, having seen what Narasimha Rao went through in terms of opportunities for reform foregone during the latter part of his term. In his final stretch in office, much of the 1992-96 PM’s concentration was less on reforms than on seeking to put out the flames that were being lit around him by his detractors. Should Manmohan Singh as PM have exercised his prerogatives in that power-packed post to establish his control over what was after all his government? When commentators, including the present columnist, would fault him in their writings for not seeking to establish greater control over the polity and over policy, he would ignore what was written about him and continue on same the cautious path.
It has to be said that despite the awesome power of the Prime Ministership, Manmohan Singh never sought to exact retribution on those who criticised him, unlike some of his Cabinet colleagues, who were vindictive towards their critics. At worst, he would ask his Media Advisor to reason, to remonstrate, with his fiercest critics. It remains in the realm of speculation whether as Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh would have achieved still greater successes than he did during his two terms in office as PM, were he to have been more assertive. Perhaps, perhaps not. What was evident even to his critics was that he remained a gentleman, a gentle man, from the start to the close of his life. On the few occasions when the paths of the 2004-14 Prime Minister and the present columnist crossed, there was only a wry smile on his part, never a word nor a gesture of remonstrance, of irritation, at the verbal darts that had been thrown his way by this columnist.
As was the man, so also his family. Even his closest relatives remained in the background, never preening nor seeking to assert their prerogative of being incomparably close to the man who held the most consequential post in the country. Very similar to the family of the present Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, whose kin have been content to remain unobtrusive even when their close relative has arguably one of the most powerful jobs not just in the country but now also in the world. Manmohan Singh may have passed, but memories of him will abide in all who knew him. The legacy he leaves behind will live on far longer than that of any other leader in his own party.