Tag Archives: politics

Almost during the entire 4.5 years of rule of the UPA government, the largest opposition party (not considering the left parties of course ;) ) in the Parliament BJP has been almost invariably cribbing daily that Manmohan Singh has been the weakest prime minister, India had ever had. They have been led in this campaign of theirs by wannabe-PM L K Advani, with the chant being repeated by other second-ring idiots then.

Most of the prime ministers that we had – right from Nehru till Vajpayee performed pathetically towards the end of their tenures. Nehru’s last days were marred by back stab that he received from China, Indira’s by Sikh separatism leading ultimately to advent of ISI sponsored terrorism, Narasimha Rao’s by corruption charges and Vajpayee’s by his inability to control the Hindutva fundamentalist and fanatic forces, as per his own confession. On the contrary, prime minister Manmohan Singh has shown it again, how he has reached where he has. It is because he completes each of his innings in style and after completing the work that was assigned to him. Regarding completion of the assigned task, Singh’s original job was to see that this strange-looking coalition does not end up in a one-month government, and perhaps also to save Sonia Gandhi from the embarrassment of leading one such. and regarding doing it in style — in all probability, the Congress is not coming back to power in 2009 due to anti-incumbency, highly aggravated by the soaring inflation. So, that means Manmohan Singh hardly has many more days left in office. Perhaps, sensing this fully well in advance, he showed it to the world and to his professional brethren what does it mean to have guts.

For those who can decipher people’s actions, he also gives clear signs of having a good enough knowledge of politics. He knew the numbers can be with him even if the Left walks out, and apparently, he made it clear to Sonia Gandhi that the Congress machinery better indulge in ensuring that they do get those numbers or relieve him of the duty. And as from whatever little that I have seen of Indian politics, I never saw any prime minister (heck even any chief minister) challenging his supporting parties to withdraw support and bring down the govt. If the UPA govt. had left this deal undone, it would have certainly gone down in history as one which was constantly bugged by agents supporting it from outside, and also would have been cited in political sciences’ classes as an example of one of the demerits of coalition politics.

Only time will decide whether this deal is equally beneficial to both the countries or not, and especially so from our perspective, but by going ahead with the deal, Manmohan Singh has stood with his head held upright for a cause that he believes in. Even the first prime minister Nehru who had almost full majority in the Parliament with him couldn’t get many of the bills cleared that he wanted to, Rajeev Gandhi, reportedly, had to go against his own wishes in the Shah Bano case in nullifying the SC judgement and if Vajpayee used to be called as Dhritarashtra of modern era, because of his not-so-mysterious silence at the sorrowful turn of communal events, the only examples that come to my mind with reference to Manmohan Singh are those of Karna from the great Indian epic Mahabharata and Brutus from the ancient Roman empire. Not unlike both of them, his only fault is that he is in the wrong place, but he is still fighting it out in the middle.

So Mr. Advani, are you willing to reconsider you opinion on who has been the weakest prime minister we had had or who might become :P