The Hindu Business Line : Mr Prime Minister, your slip is showing!

Far from being seen as a Prime Minister who will boldly wield the broom against chicanery and malfeasance, Dr Manmohan Singh is giving the impression that he is allowing himself to be swallowed by the political system.

IN MAY 2004, the entire country was all praise mingled with admiration for Ms Sonia Gandhi for her choice of Dr Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister, after stunning everybody into a state of disbelief by waving away the top post, which was hers for the asking.

It was not just the choice in itself that won acclaim, but the fact that she showed unparalleled political chutzpah in preferring him to Messrs Arjun Singh or Pranab Mukherjee, whose claims as political veterans of long standing would have normally prevailed over his in the way such matters of moment were decided in the past.

That they, despite being made to work under someone who was their subordinate in the not-too-distant past, submitted to her diktat, speaks volumes for the undisputed hold she has over the party. Even so, reports are circulating that, on occasion, they have behaved as if deferring to him is beneath their dignity, sometimes skipping meetings called by him, ignoring his views or directives, omitting to take his advice before announcing major decisions and simply keeping him out of the loop.

For instance, from what Dr Singh himself has hinted, there seems to have been an angry exchange questioning his authority to get scorecards made on the performance of each Ministry and on making them public.

The Prime Minister is often lampooned as playing second fiddle to the "super-Prime Minister" — Ms Gandhi — and doing nothing without consulting her. Only those who have no idea of the working of political parties and governments will indulge in this kind of petty and meaningless taunt. It is not only wholly proper but also essential that he works in close concert with Ms Gandhi.

After all, she is the president of the Congress, the party which cobbled together the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Since all the past Prime Ministers also held the post of the party President, their double role helped them anticipate and avert potential conflicts between the party and the government. The importance of meshing the perspectives of both and ensuring a unified approach to issues of common interest is obvious in a situation in which two different leaders of national stature are holding the two posts.

What makes it compelling is the fact that the Alliance comprises disparate parties with their own open and hidden agendas, sticking together with power as the only glue.

Euphoric expectations: It is as well that Ms Gandhi takes care of the nitty-gritty of party matters, acting as a lightning rod for the tensions among the Alliance partners and the Left parties extending support from outside, leaving Dr Singh free to concentrate on running the government.

At the same time, by virtue of her close contacts with party leaders and cadres, she is able to give him the feedback from the grassroots, facilitating the formulation of realistic policies and monitoring their implementation. Dr Singh is, therefore, right in extolling her role as being a source of great strength.

When he assumed office, the Prime Minister raised great expectations among those who cared for clean politics and good governance. It was a golden moment when all sections of opinion in India and abroad, without exception, were convinced that the country had, at long last, been delivered from the clutches of the self-serving class. They were elated that, for the first time since Independence, the post was going to be held by a thorough professional who had the double advantage of being a political insider held in great respect for his intellect and integrity and of knowing every nut and bolt of the government machinery.

Here was one who made a smooth transition from public administration to politics, holding with great distinction the posts of the Reserve Bank of India Governor, Secretary-General of the South-South Commission and the Finance Minister (in which capacity he, with consummate skill, steered India towards its rightful destiny as a global economic power). He was also hailed as one who would replace crass politicking for selfish ends with a spirit of public service in national interest, and the deviousness, deceit and graft permeating the corridors of power with a work culture of accountability, transparency and uprightness.

He, unlike politicians of the garden variety, could be trusted to unhesitatingly kick off the chair rather than compromise on principles. In short, he would usher in a new paradigm of filth-free governance. A thousand pities that within 18 months of taking over the reins of Government, Dr Singh's slip from the high pedestal should be showing.

Tragic irony: The first shock was his apparently nonchalant inclusion in his Cabinet of persons of the ilk of Messrs Lalu Prasad, Shibu Soren and Mohammed Taslimuddin, who were facing criminal charges framed by courts after diligent application of judicial mind to the evidence tendered.

It was distressing to see Dr Singh putting up with the mortification of judicial pronouncements forcing Mr Soren to quit the Cabinet and go into hiding for a while to evade legal processes. That he should re-induct Mr Soren into the Cabinet in the recent reshuffle has jolted all who care for ethics and morality as the supreme arbiter of good governance.

It is tragic irony that it should, of all persons, fall to Dr Singh, who is decency personified, to inject such a heavy dose of criminalisation not just into politics but straight into the sanctum sanctorum, the Council of Ministers itself, and thereby make nonsense of the much vaunted rule of law.

Most disturbingly, in the face of trenchant criticism, he has been taking the same plea as any run-of-the-mill politician would, about the accused being innocent until proven guilty, forgetting that persons in high positions handling public funds and vast national assets should be utterly above even a scintilla of suspicion.

Let us pass over the `politics as usual' witnessed in Jharkhand, Goa and Bihar under the stewardship of someone who was thought to be unusual in having scintillating credentials. Let us refrain from drawing any adverse inference from his dithering over l'affaire Natwar Singh and assume that he did not want to consign a colleague to the doghouse on unproven references to him in some foreign documents.

Let us also leave aside the implications of broader policy areas of the nuclear deal, response to Leftist pressure and the like, merely noting that there are bound to be honest differences of perception and opinion over such issues but that, to his credit, Dr Singh stood his ground on modernisation of airports and FDI in retail. Let us quickly come to the redoutable Ottavio Quattrochi. Does Dr Singh really want the country to take his word that the CBI panjandrums — who click their heels at the very mention of the PMO, who have no doubt in their own minds on which side their bread is buttered, who know better than laying their livelihoods on the line and who have long hunted with political hounds and run with political hares — will all on their own responsibility and exercising their own discretion take such a momentous decision?

That of dispatching a top legal luminary of the Government (and not the CBI) to arrange the swift handing over on a platter by "defreezing" long frozen bank holdings of three million euros and one million dollars to a high voltage Italian fugitive from justice so close to Ms Gandhi in such a politically sensitive case as that of Bofors kickbacks? Come, come, Mr Prime Minister! Indeed, if your account (and the CBI's corroboration) is to be believed, the agency has shown a singular and egregious lack of judgment and prudence, which bodes ill for the future.

The position today is this: Dr Singh is on the verge of losing the goodwill and support of the people with which he started his tenure as Prime Minister. Far from being seen as a Prime Minister who will boldly wield the broom against chicanery and malfeasance, he is giving the impression that, at best, he is allowing himself to be swallowed by the political system as it has operated for as long as one can remember and, at worst, has decided to embrace the saying: If you can't beat them, join them.

Unequalled moral stature: If he does not pull himself up and take a stand against all that is shameful in public life today, people will start wondering whether he was deliberately installed in the hope that he will be a pliant instrument in the hands of a scheming political coterie, serving as a shield for its self-serving designs.

This is not as odd as it seems. This was precisely the intention behind the choice by the Syndicate in the 1960s of Indira Gandhi — taken to be a goongi gudiya (dumb doll) — as the Prime Minister over the heads of stalwarts such as Morarji Desai, Y.B. Chavan, Sanjiva Reddy or Jagjivan Ram. But Indira Gandhi made "unpersons" (in the Orwellian sense) of all her detractors. Though Dr Singh is no Indira Gandhi, he still has the unequalled moral stature to say: Thus far, and no farther! Will he say it?