“I have nothing to be ashamed of my Prime Minister,” Dr Manmohan Singh told me when I met him in August 2023.
In 2014, at the end of his second term as prime minister, Singh said, “History will be kinder to me than the media.” This was at a time when she was under attack for being a “weak prime minister”, acknowledged by Sonia Gandhi as the power behind the throne during her two terms as prime minister.
In April this year, 91-year-old Manmohan Singh retired from active politics – a Rajya Sabha MP for 33 years. No one would have believed but before Narendra Modi won a third term this year, the erudite, soft-spoken, cautious leader attacked for his silence — he was called “Mouni Baba” — would be the only non-Nehru-Gandhi. The Prime Minister of India will have two consecutive terms.
In his long political journey, Singh contested Lok Sabha elections only once — from South Delhi in 1999 — and lost. Some senior Congress leaders were suspected of working behind the scenes to ensure his defeat to prevent him from acquiring the image of a popularly elected leader. After that, the once-bitten, twice-shy Singh never attempted to run for the Lok Sabha – not even taking that risk when he was prime minister from 2004 to 2014.
Fittingly, after retiring from the Rajya Sabha, Sonia Gandhi entered the Upper House for the first time, as a Congress MP from Rajasthan – the state that Singh represented for his last term, having previously been elected to the House from Assam.
During our conversation, it became clear that what worried him most was the great “acrimony” that had arisen in the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition, which he felt was not “good” for democracy.
Singh’s rise from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of power was the story of a self-made man; It was to India’s incredible democracy, however tenuous, that such a rise could take place in India. Born in Gah, a backward village in West Punjab (now in Pakistan), which had no schools, health facilities or electricity, he walked kilometers to attend an Urdu-medium school – and studied under kerosene lamps. the night He attributed his rise to the “scholarship system” for poor students at the time.
There are few people in public life who have the experience that Singh has gained from leading the country’s top administrative institutions, from being the country’s chief economic adviser and governor of the Reserve Bank of India to finance secretary and UGC chairman. With a deep understanding of the country’s federal structure and central-provincial relations, he also became the vice-chairman of the Planning Commission.
After holding these key posts, he was brought in as a “technocrat” Finance Minister by PV Narasimha Rao in 1991 when the latter suddenly became Prime Minister following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Even before his inauguration, Rao found himself in a serious balance of payments crisis and India on the brink of default. When Rao took the bold decision to take India out of the “License Quota Raj” for structural reforms – India’s options were limited because the Soviet Union had collapsed and it was a US-led unipolar world – he was ably assisted by Manmohan Singh. As they proceeded to reform and stabilize the economy. A champion of economic liberalization, Singh as Prime Minister presided over an expanding economy with a subsequent high growth trajectory.
It was an unexpected turn of events that made Singh the “accidental prime minister” in 2004. Sonia Gandhi was elected as the leader of the Congress parliamentary party after the general elections, and was also elected as the UPA president. But she decided not to become the prime minister.
Sonia anointed Singh as prime minister, creating an unusual power-sharing model—she took care of “political” decisions and he “ruled” (though the two were inseparable). He was soon seen as a real powerhouse. But Singh, in the words of one of his ministers, remained “infinitely gracious” even when his instructions were ignored by his colleagues, who looked more to Sonia Gandhi for regulators.
He was compared to a blade of grass that bends when the storm comes, not like a tree that stands upright and shatters. This is also one of the reasons why he lived as Prime Minister for 10 years.
He “adjusted” not only Sonia but also senior leaders like Pranab Mukherjee, who had to work under him, with his prime ministerial ambitions. Mukherjee headed most of the GoMs (Group of Miners) and EGoMs (Empowered GoMs) through which Singh chose to run his government. He used to address Mukherjee as ‘Sir’ before he became Prime Minister – and even later until Mukherjee asked him not to do so.
Soon after she took over as Prime Minister, the first question Singh addressed was where Sonia should be seated in Parliament. It was a difficult issue, given his growing stature after saying “no” to the PMship. It was Mukherjee again who came to her rescue and arranged a satisfactory front row seat for her.
In September 2013, Rahul Gandhi “gate crashed” a press conference and called the ordinance passed by the Manmohan Singh cabinet “complete nonsense”. The ordinance overturned the Supreme Court’s order that MPs would lose their membership immediately if they were sentenced to at least two years in prison. This was seen as Singh’s weakest moment as Prime Minister. Many thought that he would resign. He didn’t. What is not known is that Rahul apologized to Singh, according to informed sources.
However, there was one issue on which he remained steadfast, despite the obstacles that came his way – the Indo-US nuclear deal (in 2008), which led to strategic ties with the US, a process that continues apace. Singh and US President George Bush enjoyed remarkable chemistry in their relationship. Bush was impressed by Manmohan Singh’s “integrity, intelligence and self-deprecating ways” of the loud, hearty Texan and asked his officials, “What does Manmohan Singh want? I am committed to him.” Although the deals are related to the interests of nations, and the US sees India as a rival to China in the region, Bush and Singh may not have been at the heart of it. They pursued it with dogged zeal for more than 39 months.
During this period, Singh showed what little political sense he had, displayed a murderous streak, used the “sam dam dand bhed”, made good on Sonia, who initially opposed the deal, and the Left, who threatened to back down. Their critical support and finally did it. Ahmed Patel, Sonia’s powerful political secretary, was heard to comment in frustration, ‘Doctor Sahib, who will decide the alliance, that is the party’s (Congress) job’.
But Singh garnered alternative support from the Samajwadi Party – defying the belief that he was politically naïve and essentially a bureaucrat. While he was seen as a “weak prime minister”, and scandals made his second term certain, in this instance, he showed that he could hold his own and be his own man.
Singh used to rail against Hemming as Prime Minister by a determined Congress brass, though he did not go public about it. He threatened to resign several times during his prime ministership – but didn’t go ahead and do it.
The architect of India’s economic reforms, the country’s only Sikh prime minister, Singh was selected as prime minister because he was Sonia’s best bet. He had no personal agenda, nor his own constituency.
But a key question whether history may judge him kindly or otherwise is this: While the 2004 model outlined a power-sharing arrangement with Sonia, could Singh have pushed the envelope further by asserting greater authority over the post? Who is the Prime Minister of India?
(Neerja Chaudhary, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of ‘How Prime Ministers Decide’)
Why should you buy our membership?
You want to be the smartest in the room.
You want access to our award-winning journalism.
You don’t want to be confused and misinformed.
Choose your subscription package