Yankee doodle do

Ashok Mitra is a man of many parts. He once served as economic adviser to Indira Gandhi, then as finance minister in Jyoti Basu8217;s government after the Left parties swept West Bengal in 1977, and all along he has kept his mind agile by writing on assorted interests 8212; from cricket and Calcutta8217;s unique character to national affairs. Now, late in life, he has diversified. In a recent memoir, A Prattler8217;s Tale: Bengal, Marxism and Governance, he reveals his hitherto secret flair for detective work. The scoop he has dished out: Manmohan Singh, now prime minister of this country, was appointed finance minister of India in 1991 upon specific advice rendered by the United States to P.V. Narasimha Rao.

By all accounts, Mitra leaves his revelation so shorn of supportive proof that one can only gasp at another piece of trivia thrown in. That Dr Singh was in fact Washington8217;s second choice, the first man on the list declining Rao8217;s offer to be FM. Who, Comrade Mitra, is this courageous man or woman? Could there really exist a person who8217;d spurn the Great Yankee and hope to live in anonymity? While dwelling on the foreign hand, Mitra remains completely oblivious of the irony that it is his communist colleagues who would wait with bated breath for clearance from Moscow before changing the inkpots at party HQ.

The point is simply this. The dramatis personae actually named in an episode so pithily narrated by Mitra are so well-known that his story just does not convince. Rao was too astute to be coerced into sub-contracting a ministerial portfolio. Singh, compelled by that bankrupt summer of 1991 into rushing in structural reform, displayed over the years that he has so internalised the reformist paradigm, that his decisions betray no imprint of US orders. Too bad, we say, because at this post-Iraq high noon of anti-Americanism, we could finally have found something to thank Washington for.