Tragedy of being Manmohan Singh

by Arun Srivastava

Emphatic drubbing in the Karnataka elections has not made the BJP to revise its tactics of seeking the resignation of Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on the plea of being corrupt, protecting his corrupt Ministers and misusing his office. In a different situation the prudent BJP leadership, particularly its President, Rajnath Singh, should have refrained from asking Mamohan Singh to resign. But a Modi(fied) Rajnath kept up the tempo conveniently forgetting that the people of Karnataka had rejected the BJP for being corrupt. For the BJP, thrown out of power in Karnataka, its gateway to the south, seeking the resignation of the Singh is the only political plank to survive. The leadership knows it pretty well that no other mechanism or issue is going to help the party bounce back on the national scene and win over the trust of the urban Indian middle class, which has emerged as the most decisive vote-bank post-reforms and globalisation.

The BJP is also aware of the fact that its trust-worthiness quotient with the urban middle class has not only been quite low but abysmal. The urban middle class is not ready to dump its messiah, Dr Manmohan Singh. The attempt of the BJP to project Narendra Modi was a part of the strategy to evolve an alternative to Dr Singh. But even before it could catch the imagination of the people of the country the voters of Karnataka rejected this proposition. The BJP also knows it well that L.K. Advani, who was the first BJP leader to launch his vitriolic campaign against Dr Singh in 2009 and went up to denigrating him as the weakest Prime Minister, cannot be the perfect idol of the urban middle class.

Unlike its class counterparts in other countries, like the rich in the United States who preferred to be described as “job creator” to lobby for tax breaks, India’s elite has stuck to the middle-class narrative to capture more public resources like fuel, food and education subsidies, purely at the cost of the country’s poor millions. Using their proximity to the centre of power and media amplification, the rich, masquerading as the middle class, have a major say in policy formulation and also influence the government’s allocation of funds. This middle class knows that no political leader, not even Rahul Gandhi, though he is young, can serve their interest in a large measure. While the other political parties have their own inherent contradictions and problems, Dr Singh is the safest bet for this class.

Being aware of the ground level political reality, the BJP leadership is using all its might to demolish the image of Dr Singh. It is a matter of concern that in post-independent India this nature of political activism is gaining ascendancy. Dr Singh also has his share of blame for this situation. His ostrich-like silence has only added to the crisis. Eventually Dr Singh sacked two senior UPA Ministers, Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar, over charges of corruption and misuse of public office, but the action was considerably delayed. No doubt, the BJP leader-ship and a section of the media were trying to create the impression that Kumar changed the content of the CBI draft only to protect Dr Singh. They succeeded in their mission to a large extent. But why? The simple reason is the lack of assertiveness on the part of the Prime Minister. Dr Singh sacked the two Ministers, but he himself has now come within the Opposition’s line of fire for acting too late and wasting Parliament’s precious time.

Dr Singh should understand that simply being honest is not enough, people of the country must have the feel that he is honest. In his case it is the biggest paradox that he has failed to send the right message and has been caught in the quagmire, ironically his own creation. The BJP, which earlier lost Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, would continue its tirade against Dr Singh as this is the only political ploy it has: pressing for the PM’s resignation. Little doubt that the BJP has so far failed to make political gains from the UPA Government’s failure to stem corruption and the undertaking scams; it hopes that it would be able to resurrect its fortunes using this plank in the changed situation. The party knows that if a lie is repeated with firm determination hundred times, it becomes the truth. The party is following the same line. In fact Dr Singh has provided the necessary fodder to the BJP. Dr Singh should have firmly acted against the Ministers, sending the message that his government and the Congress party are not soft on corruption. This would have put the BJP on the defensive. It is now unlikely that Dr Singh will succeed in insulating himself from the Opposition attack.

The most critical and damaging charge that has been levelled against Dr Singh is that he has been using his image of being a clean and honest leader to promote corruption and patronise his corrupt Ministers. It is alleged that Kumar tampered with the portions of the CBI report on coal blocks allocation to apparently protect Dr Singh under the pretext of correcting grammatical errors.

What is surprising is that notwithstanding the high-decibel charge by the BJP against the Prime Minister, the urban middle class has not yet become averse towards Dr Singh. He is still the favourite of this class. They think that Dr Singh is capable of meeting their aspirations even in this complex economic situation. The elite or the middle class would like that Dr Singh or for that matter the government should keep them at the centre of their policy formulation. In fact their desire to some extent was fulfilled at the Jaipur Chintan Shivir, where the party shifted its focus from the peasantry and rural poor and decided to frame policies which suit the needs of the bourgeoning middle class youth and women. The government is too willing to subsidise essential commodities to meet the requirements of the middle class. Look at the diesel subsidies—which cost India an estimated $18 billion, according to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission—illustrating the elite’s capture of the subsidies and its consequences. Much of the subsidies benefit big industries and the so-called middle class, who use the fuel to run their cars and power generators. In contrast only 12 to 18 per cent of these subsidies are consumed by farmers and that too by those who are rich farmers and can afford tractors or pumps.

The author is a Kolkata-based senior journalist who can be contacted at sriv52@gmail.com