Manmohan Singh: The politician who was defeated by politics

The biggest myth about Manmohan Singh was that he wasn’t a politician.

No one can survive the complex maze that is the Indian political system as a lateral entrant from academia to the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, embed oneself in ministries such as commerce and finance, lead institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India and Planning Commission, work with multiple prime ministers from Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to Chandra Shekhar to PV Narasimha Rao, navigate the world of international economic policymaking, make the transition from being a bureaucrat to a minister, become the leader of the opposition, and then serve as the prime minister of a country as large, messy, and complex as India for 10 years, as the head of a coalition government with the real power centre being elsewhere, without having a strong political sense.

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Manmohan Singh did all that. And it was his political sense that helped Singh in cultivating relationships with those who exercise power, grabbing each opportunity that came his way, pushing when possible and retreating when he smelt danger, knowing the big picture always, offering that as a rationalisation while making compromises, and using the combination of understated manner, quiet humility, non-threatening persona, and sheer brilliance to be one of India’s most important post-Independence leaders.

The rise to corridors of power

To be sure, Singh lost the only Lok Sabha election he fought, from South Delhi, ironically among the geographical hubs that benefited most from his post-1991 economic reforms. This lack of electoral success, or broader mass appeal, was widely considered his biggest weakness but it was also his biggest strength. His experience and credibility as a reformer, his track record as a man of integrity, his personal story from a village in what is now Pakistan through Punjab to Oxbridge to the Delhi School of Economics to North Block may have all been factors in Sonia Gandhi’s decision to pick him as the PM in 2004 — but, arguably, the biggest factor was that Singh did not have a mass base and he wasn’t an operator in the corridors of power and this allowed the family to trust him.

Singh ran with the opportunity Gandhi provided in his first term. He politically reinvented himself from being the man who ushered in the reforms to the man who now spoke of reforms with a human face. He knew that Gandhi’s heart lay in social welfare, and perhaps resisting his own impulses, Singh presided over the passage of rights-based legislations even as he ensured robust growth rates.

Strategic reset with the West

Singh decided that like he would stake it all for reforms in 1991, he would stake it all for the civil nuclear deal with the US — for he saw it as not just a nuclear deal but the beginning of India’s strategic reset with the West in general and US in particular which, in turn, would help India build capabilities in a variety of domains. Singh dared the Left to withdraw support, dared Gandhi to either remove him or come on board, flirted with political operators who opened channels with Samajwadi Party, and eventually had his way, saving both the deal and the government -- a remarkable political feat.

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It was a combination of his past economic record, growth, inclusive social policies, tactical compromises, foreign policy projection, electoral gambits (including the farm loan waiver), the politics of “secularism” which ensured substantial Muslim consolidation that saw Singh lead Congress to its best ever performance in 2009 elections since 1991. Incidentally, the party hasn’t since improved his record.

But that is when the story shifted.

A challenging second term

The challenges inherent in having two centres of power — 10 Janpath and what was then 7 Race Course Road; Sonia Gandhi and PM Singh — became more apparent in the second term. Suddenly, Singh began looking weak and a man who was holding the office but not exercising power. The baggage of the first term — in terms of arbitrary allocation of resources in exchange for possible benefits from cronies by members of alliance partners — came to public light. Singh began looking compromised, with his biggest asset of integrity under question. The contradictions within his own government — between the two most senior ministers; between Congress and allies; within allies — became a subject of everyday debate. And the man who was feted for having no ambition came across as someone who would tolerate anything for the sake of power, taking away his moral authority.

The dip in the economy and spike in prices took away his other USP, of a credible economic manager, with the wider electorate while his government’s decision to impose policies such as retrospective taxation eroded Singh’s appeal with international capital. Singh’s inability to recognise that new forms of media, including social media, were changing how politics was conducted left his government way behind in the public sphere. His inability to manage new forms of mass mobilisation exemplified by the anti-corruption movement led by Arvind Kejriwal eroded both the government’s authority and political legitimacy. His inability to address the increasing grievances of corporate India, which had, for all of the party’s rhetoric, been a part of the Congress coalition, left him without powerful backers. And his inability to stand up to Rahul Gandhi — who tore an ordinance agreed upon by the cabinet in a direct affront to prime ministerial authority — left Singh, at the very end of his political life, appear like an almost forlorn figure.

The end of a political journey

All of this coincided with the rise of Narendra Modi and his political genius in combining the idea of development, the projection of strength, the subtext of Hindutva, the promise of a clean government to offer an alternative. Building that alternative involved discrediting Singh and his record entirely for the competitiveness of Indian elections leaves no space for nuance. The Bharatiya Janata Party carried out the political demolition job on Singh effectively, destroying the Congress electorally, and reshaping India by coming to power in 2014. But it won’t be a surprise if Modi himself recognises that he has built on the legacy left behind by Singh.

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Be it the need to deregulate sectors, reduce the overwhelming role of the State in private enterprise, and encourage and embrace the private sector or build a digital identity that could overcome the perennial challenge of welfare delivery; be it the strategic embrace of the West and the recognition that deeper ties with Washington are critical for India to develop and deal with its geopolitical challenges or the realisation that connectivity in the wider subcontinent and improvement of border infrastructure are key for security, India’s current PM and last PM have more in common that their supporters would like to admit.

And in that itself lies Manmohan Singh’s finest political legacy. His 1991 reforms trusted Indian citizens over the Indian State, liberated mind sets and created unprecedented opportunities. His prime ministerial stint was a part of the post-1991 continuum where, despite their differences, all governments have sought to champion a mix of economic reforms and welfare internally and closer ties with the West while retaining strategic autonomy externally.

Manmohan Singh, along with his old boss PV Narasimha Rao, his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his successor Narendra Modi can be safely described as a part of the quartet who have shaped the India of today in more critical ways than anyone else in the last five decades. For a Sikh boy who saw the ravages of Partition and rose from nothing to lead the world’s largest democracy, it was a life lived well, lived fully, lived with dignity, and lived with tremendous public impact.