09 January 2013, 05:08 PM IST
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's silence over Pakistan's brutal killing of two Indian soldiers inside Indian territory is inexplicable but forms a now familiar pattern. The PM was silent for days over the Delhi gang rape till public outrage forced him to issue a robotic statement ending with a "theek hai" – encapsulating all that is wrong with our top leadership.
Dr. Singh will go down in history as the first Indian Prime Minister who is not his own boss. Every single Prime Minister who preceded him – Nehru, Shastri, Indira, Desai, Rajiv, V.P.Singh, Chandrashekar, Rao, Deve Gowda, Gujral and Vajpayee – had the last word in his or her government. On policy, no one in party or government could supersede them.
Dr. Singh alas does not have the last word. That belongs to Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
It is important to note that neither Mrs. Gandhi nor her heir apparent Rahul Gandhi have said a word on Pakistan's atrocity either. This is leading by silence, not leading from the front. It is the principal reason why India has a leadership deficit.
Whether it is silence over Pakistan's killing of Indian soldiers across the LoC or over Akbaruddin Owaisi's hate speech and subsequent arrest, India's political leadership has abdicated its responsibility.
Why has Dr. Singh, an honourable man and a distinguished economist, allowed this to happen? In the Westminster parliamentary system that India follows, the Prime Minister constitutionally has absolute power to decide policy and absolute accountability for those policies.
But Dr. Singh has acquiesced to a system where he is held accountable for policy decisions he may not have made – or even approve of.
The 2G spectrum scam took place under his quiet but watchful gaze. He objected to its modus operandi, made his displeasure clear in writing, but then did nothing.
Why? Because he has accepted without demur that he is not the final authority in government. He does not have the final say. Mrs. Gandhi does.
Could she then have stopped the serial scams that took place in UPA-1 and UPA-2? If she has the power to veto the Prime Minister, if she has the last word, and if she is the political boss of the UPA government, then yes, she could have and should have.
That she didn't is a serious indictment of how India has been governed over the past 8½ years: shoddily.
* * *
Why has the Prime Minister kept his peace even though he knows that serious acts of misgovernance have occurred on his watch and sullied his once-impeccable reputation? No one questions his personal integrity. But increasingly they do question his judgement.
A career academic and bureaucrat, Dr. Manmohan Singh was plucked out of near-retirement in 1991 at the age of 59 by Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao on the advice of, among others, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Rao-Singh combination saved India's economy from collapse in the aftermath of the 1990-91 Gulf war and Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
Between 1998 and 2004, Dr. Singh served as leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. It was during this period that he acquired the political skills that later, as Prime Minister, would allow him to be called, rather unkindly, an over-rated economist and an under-rated politician.
It was also during this period that Dr. Singh launched one of my books at the Nehru Centre in Mumbai and delivered a robust speech analysing the book and India's economic priorities. His subsequent silence in the face of clear misgovernance is, to me, thus personally saddening.
But what of Mrs. Gandhi? How has she been able to wield absolute power without absolute accountability? How do otherwise intelligent and self-respecting ministers defer to her so reverentially, even at the cost of snubbing the Prime Minister who, zen-like, seems not to mind?
Is this obsequeousness a part of our political culture, so deeply embedded that if afflicts the brightest and bravest in both government and media? The short answer: yes.
The unquestioning acceptance of Rahul Gandhi as the next Congress president should embarrass Congressmen and women. It does nothing of the kind. Real democratic leaders like Barack Obama or David Cameron could get elected from anywhere in their respective countries.
That does not hold true for most of our dynastic leaders – across parties. Electoral legitimacy, when so severely circumscribed, will lose validity far more rapidly, as Indian democracy evolves, than dynasts today think.
The Prime Minister has of course shown rare bursts of independence – especially now that his term is nearing its end. He wished to leave behind three legacies. One, the Indo-US nuclear deal. Two, deeper economic reforms. Three, rapprochement with Pakistan.
The first and third lie in some disarray. The Prime Minister does not have the time to rescue them. He is thus concentrating on economic reforms, his only enduring legacy.
Unfortunately, the legacy for which he might be most remembered is diminishing the constitutional primacy of the Prime Minister's office.
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