PM has a good try at reaching out

The baby step the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has taken to reinvent himself as a sensitive and responsive Prime Minister through his meeting with five editors on June 29 had received an advance build-up as the first of a series of similar meetings to bring him closer to the media and the people, and thereby provide clarity to the Government's policies and actions.

However, if such meetings are to serve the intended purpose in the required measure, extreme care should be taken not to introduce into them elements that by themselves distract attention away from the subject-matter. With reference to the first meeting, for one thing, the people at large are unable to make out the basis for the number and choice of editors.

In fact, the official media release as also the media coverage of the event (but for one exception) have been inexplicably sanitised to the extent of keeping out the identities of the invitees and the particular questions asked by them in the course of the exchange.

For another, the people are in the dark as to the reason why the meeting should have been held in camera and not on camera. An intelligent watcher of a media conference can learn plenty by way of the significance and implication of the topics raised and the credence to be given to the statements made by interpreting the body language of the participants and taking into account the background of particular persons asking questions.

Participative democracy demands openness and truthfulness, and cannot brook any scope being given for speculation or surmise in interactions among the stakeholders. One hopes that the format of, arrangements for, future meetings will conform to this basic principle.

Promising start

On the whole, though, the meeting can be called a promising start to Dr Singh's effort at reaching out, if only because of the tone of sincerity and earnestness reflected in his views and answers.

It helped clear the air with regard to matters surrounding the scams that had rocked the Government, the agitations against corruption and black money, the Maoist menace and the differences over the Lokpal Bill. These were issues about which the people had assumed the worst, especially in the context of the Government's apparently cavalier attitude, seeming all the more suspicious by the prolonged silence of the Prime Minister.

The confidence with which Dr Singh outlined his priorities also gave the impression of his being clear of his goals and the directions he should take to attain them.

Nevertheless, some of his observations at the meeting make one wonder whether they are meant to serve as alibis for any future accusations of inaction and indifference on his part.

For instance, he says that he cannot be spending his time looking after “each and every Ministry”. He has also asserted that he cannot be conducting a post-mortem over the decisions of Cabinet colleagues and that he has necessarily to assume that his Ministers “will scrupulously work by the norms of ethics, fairness and transparency”.

Mental antennae

When asked why issues “on the boil” in the media every day were not taken as a warning, Dr Singh retorted that were he to go by the newspapers, he would have to refer everything to the CBI, and it would weaken the entrepreneurial impulses and “willy-nilly install a police raj”.

The Prime Minister, in discharging his responsibility for supervision and control, needs to function exactly in the manner of a chief executive: Keeping his mental antennae up and active all the time so as to be able to instantly spot the occurrence of foul play and follow it up at his level, much as the Supreme Court is doing in respect of some of the scams.

Dr Singh's remark that “there is no mechanism in Prime Minister's office to look at all the minute details” lets the PMO off the hook too easily.

Most of his woes are directly traceable to the lackadaisical functioning of his office.

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