The Hindu Business Line : Where's thy wand, dear PM?

SPRING flowers and laughter seem to have deserted our fine Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. Neither a statesman's decisive stride nor the bluff of a politician can describe Dr Manmohan Singh as he completes a year in office as the Prime Minister of India. He has been able to somehow keep together a Union Cabinet of aged, tricky politicians obsessed more with themselves than with the nation. A good friend tells me the Government is being run like a pottikadai (a kiosk) and that too at a loss.

Sitting alone in his chamber, the decent and humane Dr Singh may not admit to his team not performing the way he did when he was the Finance Minister under Narasimha Rao. Those days Rao largely kept away from the Finance Ministry having faith in the Sardar. He will shrug away the general impression that the nation looks to the diktats of Sonia Gandhi.

The gentle Sardar cannot obviously admit he is there as Prime Minister because Ms Gandhi wants it to be so. There are some who wonder why the Sardar continues to stick to power given to him rather reluctantly by the Congress chief and not his by right.

Newsweek magazine talks of a Double Vision and thinks the two have worked out a way to keep going. More appropriately, Dr Singh dons the reading glasses to scan files, while Ms Gandhi dons the viewing glasses to ply politics. These days the Sardar looks and sounds more a panthi trying to impress an unbelieving flock.

Some believe over time Dr Singh will be able to determine the flow of political events and dialogues without any phone calls to Ms Gandhi or the Leftists. Most pieces of economic reforms are being stalled and one is not sure whether Dr Singh is for reforms or socialist controls. It is hard to disagree with Atal Behari Vajpayee, when he says Dr Singh is a weak Prime Minister.

After serving long years as a bureaucrat Dr Singh still has faith in an incompetent and insensitive bureaucracy ushering a quality society. Open markets working to a set of easy rules will be able to offer better lives and that is not happening. Dr Singh and various breeds of politicians breezing around in air-conditioned cars or aircraft (there is no Fringe Benefit Tax for them being on public duty) are disconnected from the younger generation.

Politics, political dialogue and Parliament bear an eerie air of irrelevance for the young. The young want a paying job to service at least three credit cards (depending on the number of wooing banks), a mobile and a powerful bike. Their world is crowded with the finer details of technology, business, sports and films. There is no place for the young in India and Dr Singh's Government is not making any difference by denying them space.

Young men and women do not read newspapers in Mumbai locals; they talk technology or abstruse math theorems to land a job. Young dealers in the financial markets track currencies across the world and the other day one was privy in the train to an informed chat on global inflation and debt markets.

"Our politicians are damaging our economy," one young dealer told his friend as they got off the train. In the stock and financial markets, an older generation has been unseated by hep and loud teams below the 40s. Smart faces walk the corporate corridors. But useless politicians never give way to anyone in the Lok Sabha.

History is dirt the young scrub off with imported toilet soaps. They are on easier terms with an Infosys or TCS or a Narayana Murthy or the earnings per share of scrips on the NSE than with the jaded babble of Dr Singh or Ms Gandhi or Vajpayee. It should hurt our old, venerable Sardar and all the dowdy men and women who hate to go. There is a lot common between Dr Singh's Government and the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI).

Like Dr Singh's Government, BCCI has become irrelevant to Indian cricket. Verily, the apex cricket body has still not been able to drop "Control" as otherwise it will cease to exist. The "Control" in BCCI helps juggle funds and cricket players. The chief of BCCI Mahendra-front runs for the powerful Dalmiya.

A committee of the best cricketing brains (who have never done a spot of Test class coaching) has been formed to decide on a coach, who will have no say in the selection of the team. There is no Test class bowler or batsman or fielder in the selection committee of BCCI to list a team on merits.

Our senior cricketers like Sachin, Kumble, Laxman, Rahul and Sourav, like the members of Dr Singh's cabinet, play for themselves, not for the team. They do not want to retire, willing to serve till the World Cup in 2007. Yet, our cricketers draw more youngsters than politicians as cricket offers some moolah. Has any teenager ever dreamed to be a Rao or a Dr Singh or a Sonia or a Chidambaram? Dr Singh is no icon for the young.

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Where's thy wand, dear PM?