Dr Singh in History

In the heyday of UPA 1, when the Congress-led coalition’s dominance of the political firmament was complete and the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) struggled to come to terms with its shock defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi tango was hailed as ‘Jodi No 1’, the duopoly an example of power-sharing between an appointed prime minister and the Congress president who was the power behind the throne. The arrange­ment could have run into trouble very quickly but there was a convergence in views over rights-based legislation and redistributive economic goals. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had inherited a healthy economy from the Vajpayee government and the global financial crisis of 2007-08 was still distant. The India story was gaining traction as an economic boom attracted foreign investors.

There was, of course, much that happened behind the scenes to ensure the Manmohan-Sonia relationship progressed smoothly. There were decisions the party wanted the government to take and Singh understood that quite well.

At the same time, he became the face of the UPA government and connected with the middle class who saw him as a de­cent man sharing their values. This was a significant factor in legitimising the government in popular perception despite Congress winning a handful of seats more than BJP in the 2004 General Election. Drawing lessons from BJP’s ill-fated ‘India Shining’ campaign, UPA implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Forest Rights Act along with the Right to Information Act (RTI). This was followed by Right to Education (RTE), Land Acquisition Act and the National Food Security Act (NFSA) during UPA 2.

The NREGA (now MGNREGA) scheme acknowledged limitations of the ‘trickle down’ effect. At the time BJP ad­vanced the 2004 election, GDP was galloping at 8.2 per cent in the first quarter and affordable bank loans drove unprecedent­ed growth in middle-class housing. Yet, the benefits seemed to have bypassed a large section unwilling to wait till a rising tide lifted their fortunes too. The ‘revolt’ of the grassroots does need more careful analysis since BJP did well in much of the tribal belt stretching across the middle of India. But the import of NREGA and NFSA can be judged by the Modi government’s decision to continue the programmes, wary of being tarred as anti-poor, despite evidence of redundancy and mistargeting. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) reformed the pay­ment mechanism for MGNREGA and introduced Aadhaar-based verification for the Public Distribution System (PDS), but did nothing to dismantle the landmark legislation. Prob­lems arose for the Manmohan Singh government when the limitations of such legislation were not recognised and the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC), a think-tank of left-leaning activists, insisted on more of the same. Legislation UPA brought to Parliament became overly bureaucratised and ran into resistance from within the ranks of Congress MPs as well as an assertive BJP.

Manmohan Singh’s finest hour was his gutsy decision to conclude a nuclear deal with the US ending India’s isolation caused by its principled opposition to signing the highly dis­criminatory Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He un­derstood the benefits of cooperation with the US and found in George W Bush a leader who grasped the importance of India as a geopolitical partner and, odd as it might sound, the fairness of its cause. The path to the India-US nuclear deal began with the Vajpayee government’s decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1998 and a lengthy dialogue, epitomised by the discussions between BJP leader Jaswant Singh and Amer­ican diplomat Strobe Talbott. Singh put his foot down on the nuclear deal. In a discussion attended by senior UPA leaders Sharad Pawar, AK Antony, Pranab Mukherjee, Ahmed Patel, and Sonia Gandhi, he made it plain he would not continue if the deal were abandoned. The deal had been on the table since 2005 and was vehemently opposed by the Left par­ties led by then Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) General Secretary Prakash Karat, a doctrinaire communist who saw America as an ideological foe. Over months, Karat had allowed discussions with the US to progress in bits. But there was a moment when push would come to shove.

The truth is that Singh had begun to tire of the Left’s hectoring and moralising, not to speak of the presence of its nominees in bodies like the Planning Commission. Loose talk by Left leaders was undermining the authority of the government as media flocked to them seeking reactions to policy decisions. The 2008 trust vote in Parliament was a massive exercise that not only involved ejecting the Left and inducting the Samajwadi Party (SP) but also ensuring defections from other parties, including BJP which expelled eight MPs for cross-voting. Though the Opposition called the vote a “black day”, it might have been a case of politi­cal expediency and national interest converging. The vote was marked by the infamous cash-for-votes scandal but this did not cost Congress in the public eye. Rather, the middle class instinctively recognised the wisdom of cooperation with the US. In August 2008, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) lifted the ban on India from engaging in nuclear trade with its members. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, with Singh as UPA’s prime ministerial face against BJP’s LK Advani, Con­gress returned with an increased margin, winning 206 seats.

The question whether Singh could have done more to pre­vent the 2G, coal and Commonwealth Games (CWG) scams that paralysed his second term will trouble historians. He had little to do with tainted allocations of spectrum or coal blocks that were the subject of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) scathing reports and later struck down by the Supreme Court. The blatant manipulation of 2G allocations—in the name of bringing in ‘new’ telecom players—was scandalous. The coal block allocations made through an opaque screen­ing committee were equally outrageous, with competitive bidding discarded in the name of need and efficiency. The power production goals remained unmet and allegations of windfall gains surfaced. The organisation of the 2010 CWG was done in a shambolic manner and almost every project was hit by cost and time overruns and corruption allegations.

Internal papers of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) sub­mitted to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) revealed officials did indeed raise red flags. So much so that an official noted the need to keep Singh at an “arm’s length” from the potentially damaging developments. Official notes pointed to irregularities in the telecom ministry’s handling of 2G pro­cesses while pitching for a bidding process in coal allocations. If Singh had decided not to look the other way, would he have been at risk of losing his job? Though no one is indispensable, and certainly not in politics, he would not have been easy to replace. No other candidate was as trustworthy and reliable and Sonia Gandhi was under no illusion on this count. Besides, it would have been difficult to explain why Singh was being replaced under such circumstances. It may be hard to imagine Singh going against the party high command’s diktat, but he could have influenced events more favourably. The price he and Congress paid was heavy as belief in UPA’s progressive credentials evaporated. Functioning of PMO became increas­ingly fragmented and subject to strong pressures from within even as it was buffeted by a determined BJP with leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley forcefully attacking its cre­dentials in Parliament. The PAC under veteran Murli Manohar Joshi submitted damning reports as did the parliamentary finance committee under Yashwant Sinha who, along with Arun Shourie, was to later dramatically part ways with BJP.

IN HIS HANDLING of foreign relations, Singh moved India away from the stranglehold of Cold War-era thinking and the confines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). His credentials as an economist gained him respect and India rose in global reckoning. With relation to Pakistan, he genuinely believed that economic interests could build bridges and tried his hand at peace a few times with poor results. Soon after UPA returned to office in 2009, Singh made a miscalculation. A joint statement issued after a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt noted, “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas.” The implied acceptance of the suggestion of an Indian role in aiding terrorism in Pakistan led to a political firestorm in India. Soon after he returned, Singh was informed of the political backlash and the red line he had crossed. Then there was the ‘cricket diplomacy’ dur­ing the 2011 World Cup when he watched the India-Pakistan semi-final in the company of Gilani at Mohali. The attempt to repair relations after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai failed to deliver dividends. The consistent message from Pakistan, then under a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government, was to “move on” and forget about bringing the guilty to justice. The problem was really one of seeing Pakistan in a light distant from reality. Like his prime ministerial predecessors, Singh was troubled by Chinese intrusions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and he did initiate a reappraisal of India’s border infrastructure which revealed just how complacent India had been while China took big strides in developing its side of the LAC.

NFSA was the first item on the UPA Cabinet’s agenda after returning to office in 2009. But it was close to the end of its ten­ure that it was implemented. The tale is revelatory as it encap­sulates much of what went wrong and why Narendra Modi rapidly captured the popular imagination in 2014. The final shape of NFSA was dogged by repeated interventions by NAC which wanted the scheme to be expanded beyond foodgrains. There were interminable discussions on the extent of coverage before the 66 per cent cap (75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent urban) was agreed on. Even at the time it was felt that this was a large number and might dilute the focus on those who really needed assistance. Other initiatives like a set of Bills intended to reform the education sector failed to make headway in Parliament, attracting criticism for propos­ing unwieldy regulatory structures. The Bills also ran into well-represented ‘education’ interests articulated by Congress MPs from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh who opposed reduction of the role of private professional insti­tutions in admissions. And while decision-making slowed, political challenges, such as the demand for the creation of Telangana, sapped a stretched political executive. Parliament was witness to the extraordinary sight of ruling party MPs blockading proceedings—in favour of and in opposition to Telangana. One Congress MP used pepper spray in Lok Sabha while another stood like Christ the Redeemer holding aloft a banner in the well of Rajya Sabha.

UPA responded to the 2007 global financial crisis with three stimulus packages and most commentators agreed that at least the last one was not needed. The easy money did not translate into sustained growth. The Indian economy rebounded by 2010 but poorly targeted expenditure increased government borrowings and led to an inflation spiral that lasted till the end of UPA 2’s tenure. A prolonged spell of double-digit inflation accompanied by a rising fiscal deficit led to efforts to keep certain liabilities off-the-book, reducing the reliability of government accounts. Meanwhile, Cabinet ministers be­gan to acknowledge the unproductive nature of MGNREGA projects while environmental red tape slowed project clearanc­es. The Land Acquisition Act and environmental regulations were heavily influenced by activists who had NAC’s backing and ended up increasing lack of transparency rather than empowering local communities. Pandering to activism proved costly, with growth falling below 5 per cent in the 2013 and 2014 fiscals. The data was revised upward when a new base was adopted, but slowing growth and high inflation spelled trouble for most governments and UPA was no exception. Impatient with corruption and slothful governance, voters began to seek alternatives and Modi’s ‘Gujarat model’ began to attract their attention.

Once BJP resolved its internal tug-of-war and named Modi as its prime ministerial nominee, Congress rapidly lost popular support. UPA’s second term was marked by pro­gressively urgent efforts to enmesh Modi in cases relating to the Gujarat riots and the encounter with a Lashkar module in 2004. In an extraordinary about-turn, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) disowned its affidavit that the Lashkar module, which included a young woman from Mumbra, was a terror cell assigned to carry out a political assassina­tion. Congress functionaries worked closely with NGOs to move the courts over pleas relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots and other cases, such as the encounter death of arms smuggler Sohrabuddin that led to the arrest and impris­onment of senior police officers. All of this only served to add to the confusion and lack of direction and the UPA coalition, which had delivered in the past, further weak­ened with regional leaders coming under the shadow of corruption cases.

History could, as Singh hoped, treat him kinder than contemporary accounts. His innate decency and personal rectitude stood out. It was not that he was above politics. At a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party after the Narasimha Rao government lost the 1996 elections, he did not hesitate to note that Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, an unmistakable swipe at his mentor. But he might have rued not taking tough decisions and regretting at leisure.

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