Dr Singh, surviving

Sad that the man we all wanted to do well should display the powerlessness of power

Perhaps the most important challenge any person in public life faces is negotiating the relationship between power and purpose. Power, as much as one decries it, is necessary to get things done. Without power, a stand is at best a cry of the conscience that may be vindicated in future but is at present helpless. At worst, it is totally lost, one of those meaningless gestures that is neither here nor there. But the distinction between an ordinary self serving politician and a genuine leader is that for the latter power is an instrument to some purpose. A genuine leader is self conscious enough to recognise that power, while important, is not an end, only a means; he is crafty enough to make himself the source of power, so that some of his purposes may be realised, and graceful enough to recognise that if you compromise too much for power you display an even more humiliating kind of powerlessness. The most tragic figure in politics is one who begins with some sense of purpose, but ends up confusing power and purpose.

It is in this context that the most damning criticisms of Manmohan Singh are not the Churchillian barbs: 8220;a sheep in sheep8217;s clothing8221;. Many of those who level these charges have little standing themselves. The most damning criticism is captured in that rather more sober phrase: he is a 8220;survivor8221;. But 8220;survivor8221; does not refer to someone who has overcome all odds. 8220;Survivor8221; refers rather to someone who is ready to make compromises to continue in power. It also refers to a diminution of ambition: power is not to a purpose, the purpose is power. Even personally the most decent of men justify compromises under the illusion that they need to survive in order to achieve what they want. But slowly the deferral becomes perpetual, cloaked under all kinds of euphemisms, to the point where the purpose of power becomes blurred. We do not yet know how the nuclear deal drama will play out. But it8217;s something of a diminution of Dr Singh8217;s reputation that he comes across more as a survivor rather than leader.

Admittedly, it8217;s not easy running a coalition where allies exercise a veto far in excess of their strength. But Dr Singh loses credit because even after a long stint in power there is no issue behind which he has put his weight and made his own. Economic reform has long been at a standstill. But what is worse is that his rhetoric, rather than clarifying the direction of reform, has contributed a great deal to the confusion over the direction India should take. He was right to emphasise that India needs a New Deal to make its growth more inclusive. But his proposals turned out to be neither new, nor much of a deal. Instead of leveraging the largest expansion of state revenue in history into a workable social security programme that was successful at rationally targeting all those who need to be helped, and in turn leveraging that social commitment for more reform, he let the rhetoric of inclusive growth dissipate into a plethora of schemes whose effectiveness is still in doubt.

Despite no shortage of funds, he has wilfully presided over the continuing ruin of the one sector crucial to both growth and equal opportunity: higher education. His main commitment, reform of the administration, has not even started. The one genuinely great idea this government has endorsed, the right to information, did not emanate from him. His foreign policy, particularly with neighbours, was constructive. But the lack of follow through has left it uncertain whether the gains are decisive breakthroughs or missed opportunities. The only radical measure taken in the name of inclusive politics, reservations, has a constitutionally dubious status and left the seeds of a long term divisive politics in its wake.

Admittedly, the politics of communal polarisation has diminished, but it would be extremely complacent to assume that the long term underlying issues have been resolved.

There is no better testimony to Dr Singh8217;s limitations than the fact that Congress, despite a horrendous opposition, despite propitious economic circumstances, remains uncertain about its future. It is nervous about trusting the people, and the people are in turn nervous about trusting it. Fundamentally, the Congress is ideologically more reactive than proactive, and confused about the direction in which it wants to run. Dr Singh8217;s failure is not that he did not manage to persuade the Left; it is that he has not left a transformative intellectual mark on his own party. Electoral mathematics being what they are, Congress might still put up a satisfactory performance in the polls, whenever they happen: better a party that does not score goals, than one that scores own goals BJP, some might surmise. In comparative terms, these are not bad times. But the sadness is that, retrospectively, people might conclude, that Dr Singh frittered the good times away.

In a record that showed more the characteristics of a follower than leader, the nuclear deal stood out for the passion Dr Singh put behind it. Even critics of the deal wondered why, of all issues, this is the only one he has really made his own. But electorally speaking, this is not the issue on which he can really prove that he has what is called the 8220;vision thing8221;. Although he talks about building a 8220;consensus8221;, that word in Indian politics has become a euphemism for someone caving in. Unfortunately for Dr Singh, it is not the Left that seems to be caving in.

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Dr Singh is close to failing on two crucial tests of leadership. Disraeli once remarked that he had no choice but to follow the people, after all he was their leader. Alas Dr Singh8217;s acts of following have little to do with the people. Madeline Albright said somewhere that the test of leaders was whether they had the ability to make someone change their mind. On this point, his scorecard looks bleak. It is a sad moment for Indian politics when yet another immensely able and well-meaning man, whom all wanted to succeed, displays the curious powerlessness of power, the sort only mere survivors put up with.

The writer is president, CPR, New Delhi