Last chance to be the real Prime Minister

If he had been allowed to implement some of the changes recommended by his Knowledge Commission there would have been desperately needed changes in education. We may have started building those 1,500 universities the Commission says we need, but the PM was not even allowed to choose his own Education Minister. On economic matters, he was forced to take orders from Marxists who do not have the courage to admit that their economic ideas are defunct even in China, the country they consider their ideological alma mater.

As someone who believes that Dr Manmohan Singh was the best Finance Minister we ever had, I have waited these four years to see some spark of the man who in the early nineties guided our sinking, socialist ship safely out of very troubled waters. I have not seen that man and I don’t think anyone else has either. Last week, when there were rumours that he was ready to resign rather than back down on the nuclear deal, I hoped for his sake that he would. It would spare him further humiliation and it would release him from a job he was never allowed to do.

Now that the proverbial excrement has hit the fan he is being blamed for the mess. Double digit inflation, a jittery stock market, a general sense of economic gloom, it’s all being blamed on the Prime Minister. BJP leaders routinely insult him as the ‘weakest prime minister’ India has ever had. Meanwhile, the real culprits continue about their business unscathed. Marxist leaders appear on our television screens hourly to lecture the Government on its mistakes. If prices are too high it’s the Government’s fault, if international oil prices are too high that is also the Government’s fault and if the UPA Government no longer looks like the best friend of the aam aadmi then that is also the Government’s fault. “Why don’t you ask the Government about that,” Prakash Karat said with his usual sneer when he was asked about inflation hitting double digits last week for the first time in nearly 15 years.

If the Marxists are to blame so is the PM’s lady boss. Sonia Gandhi’s ‘inner voice’ was spot on when it told her that becoming prime minister herself was a bad idea, but it failed to tell her that it was just as bad an idea to be a purdah prime minister. Not much of a purdah either since everyone in political Delhi knows who the real boss is and even politically illiterate Indians admit when polled that they think she is more powerful than the PM. It is a position of power without accountability so nobody blames her for the mess in Government. The blame for this rests squarely with the PM, as it should, and in these last few months of his tenure things have started to look very, very bad.

The nuclear deal gives the Prime Minister a chance to redeem some of his lost reputation. Everyone who is not blinkered by ideology or paranoid nationalism knows that the deal is in the best interests of India. Everyone also knows that if it falls through we are unlikely to ever get a chance like this again. So, go on Prime Minister, push it through even if the Government falls. For once let India’s interests prevail over petty political considerations.