Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first Independence Day address will be remembered more for what it did not state. He desisted, mercifully, from unleashing more paper pledges, more dream schemes. The nation is quite clearly suffering from a promise overload and a performance deficit. There is something about the ramparts of the Red Fort that tends to make prime ministers acutely conscious of their vote-garnering responsibilities. Manmohan Singh, wisely, resisted the cynicism and partisanship of such an approach by succinctly stating for the record that he has “no promises to make” but “promises to keep”. Indeed, the unfulfilled promises made from these precincts, beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ peroration, could be the stuff of innumerable Independence Day speeches!There is another aspect of Singh’s address that deserves comment, and that is his attempt to impart political and social value to economic reform. He is, possibly, the first prime minister to have done so. Even as Manmohan Singh emphasised the requirement of equitable development, he pointed out that higher economic growth, private enterprise and individual initiative are resources that necessarily need to inform the task of governance and nation-building. He outlined with telling simplicity the raison d’etre of the economic reform process that he, as the country’s finance minister, had set in motion over a decade ago: liberating individual enterprise from the stranglehold of bureaucracy. Of course, as the prime minister underlined, no reform of any kind is possible without the reform of government. Everything hinges on the ability of those who make up the government to deliver and in order to do this effectively they should be sure of the areas which need their direct intervention and those which do not.In many ways, Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day address could be read as political counsel from an elder statesman to his colleagues, both in his government and his party. Water as a national, not regional, resource; the need to evolve an ethical code for politicians; the importance of crop diversification and dryland farming; the almost Nehruvian preoccupation with the promotion of a scientific temper; the requirement of investing in the young and imparting to them an education that develops professional excellence and intellectual integrity; of pursuing purposive ties with geographical neighbours. If these are not to become mere homilies they need the energy of political action and committed leadership. Qualities, unfortunately, that the Manmohan Singh government is yet to display.
