If only politics was as learned and decent as Manmohan Singh
Arun Kumar Tripathi December 27 , 2024
It cannot be said that Dr. Manmohan Singh left this world suddenly. He said goodbye to this world at the age of 92. He lived a full life and played a great innings by making his life meaningful and the best. In front of his life, this desire that if only he could have scored a century in his life seems useless. Although efforts are being made to push back death in the world and if there is happiness about him, then there is also a fear that if the number of youth decreases, then who will take care of the elderly.
But Dr. Saheb was not a politician who would take bath in the bathroom wearing a raincoat. Neither was he a leader who would leave hard work and have fun in Harvard. He was a symbol of the best tradition of scholarship and decency of Indian culture and was a proof of the fact that there are top possibilities for a learned and gentle person in Indian democracy. When we look at the era after him, it can be said that a country gets such a gentle and learned ruler once in centuries. Even though economist Mohammad Yunus is the chief advisor of Bangladesh and has also received the Nobel Prize, he is unable to manage his country either on the economic front or in communal harmony. He is again taking his country on the same path of fundamentalism where all kinds of ignorant people want to take it and where India is going.
This author has been a critic of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s economic policies from the very beginning. In fact, he has also been a member of the Alternative Economic Group of Delhi, which has been a group that has been a fundamental critic of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s policies on the economic front. But there are two facts that show that Dr. Manmohan Singh was neither a supporter of capitalism from the very beginning of his life nor a staunch planner of liberalization.
His friend and the country’s well-known journalist Anil Chamdia had written an article stating that when Dr. Manmohan Singh was a teacher in Chandigarh, he was inclined towards extreme leftist groups. Then gradually he came out of those groups and became a member of the government’s economic bureaucracy. Today, if there was an economist like him anywhere, the current government would have declared him an urban Naxal and put him in jail long ago.
But it was the working style of the Congress Party, its large-heartedness and the compulsions of the foreign `nepotism’ of the Nehru-Gandhi family that honoured a talent like Dr Manmohan Singh and elevated him to the highest post in the country. This professor of economics with leftist or people-oriented leanings later became the global symbol of neo-liberalism, but he did not tarnish the face of neo-liberalism, rather he brightened its face. Dr Manmohan Singh’s neo-liberalism was being implemented in India with a human face and if India was becoming a model of success like China on this front, then the major reason for it was the style of working together of Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi.
Even though journalists like Sanjay Baru betrayed their proximity to Dr Singh and wrote a book like The Accidental Prime Minister' and it provided the gunpowder and cartridges to defame him and to the loudmouth spokespersons of the Sangh BJP to fire at the UPA government, but if a serious discussion is done, then in the words of Harish Khare (and according to the headline of The Telegraph) Dr Manmohan Singh will indeed be called thecreator of post-modern India’.
But those who have been spreading the rumour that the remote control of Dr Manmohan Singh was in the hands of Sonia Gandhi forget that when the remote control of a Prime Minister is in the hands of capitalists like Adani and Ambani, how does he behave with the country. Or if the remote control of a Prime Minister or Chief Minister is in the hands of a Baba or religious guru, what happens to the country and politics. In fact, compared to an autocratic ruler, a ruler is much better who is controlled by morality, democracy and constitutional values and who takes his decisions after consulting his party. This was the system of the UPA government and today due to the absence of such a system, this country is drinking the bitter cup of fascist politics every day.
Despite farmer suicides, controversial effects and decisions like Operation Green Hunt against tribals, if schemes like Right to Information, Right to Education, Right to Food, MNREGA could be implemented during the tenure of Dr. Manmohan Singh and which the Modi government is not able to dare to end despite many efforts, then this is the human face of liberalization of Dr. Manmohan Singh. One system of that time which can be called ideal was the system of EAC vs PAC.
Perhaps it was due to the pressure of the leftist parties that the privatization of public sector banks could not happen at that time. However, in the end, he had a rift with the leftist parties on the issue of nuclear deal and the communists withdrew support from the UPA government. Certainly, Dr. Manmohan Singh proved then that he is not an accidental Prime Minister. He is a natural Prime Minister born in the soil of this country and reached the top with his talent and when he stands firmly, he becomes ‘Singh is King’. It is worth noting that in 2009, when LK Advani made fun of his speaking less and behaving decently, this joke proved costly for the BJP.
But one warning of Dr. Manmohan Singh, which was ignored or which he could not implement due to the compulsions of the coalition, was the need for strict monitoring in liberalization. He had repeatedly said that these economic policies are such for which the monitoring institutions should be strong. That is, new institutions should be formed in place of the institutions of the earlier era. Which he could not do. Rather, the institutions of his own government worked with more autonomy, rather hostility, and defamed him.
Despite this, the credit for amending the Land Acquisition Act after almost 120 years and passing the Lokpal Bill should go to Dr. Manmohan Singh. Certainly, Manmohan Singh’s focus was on the economic development of the country and the world and the economic policies for which Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz was giving suggestions by writing books like Globalization and its Discontent',Making Globalization Success’ and raising many theoretical questions, Dr. Manmohan Singh did not let them fail, at least in India.
He also did not let the theory of John Ralston Saar, which he had expressed in Collapse of Globalism, work in India. The policies which had created a terrible crisis in South East Asia, which caused instability in Brazil and due to which the sub-prime crisis arose in America, were being skillfully managed by the thin Dr. Singh who had undergone bypass surgery twice.
His politics actually seems to be a part of the public policy of Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba and Jaiprakash. Especially in this era when the inspiration of politics is drawn from lies, deceit, cruelty and violence, it is hard to believe that a country like India ever had a Prime Minister like Manmohan Singh. Politics is said to be a building standing on the four pillars of Sam, Daam, Dand, Bhed from within which the cries of oppression of minorities, the weak and the truthful people are heard and the laughter of the manipulators, the liars who spread hatred, and the looters of the country’s resources is heard.
However, it is also important to consider whether the policies whose originator is Dr. Manmohan Singh are not responsible for the current crisis of Indian democracy. This is a matter of different opinion but Dr. Singh will always be remembered in the history of India as a capable, generous, gentleman, scholar and honest ruler.
His failure will definitely be called on the terrorism front. Because terrorist incidents were happening in Kashmir and the biggest incident in this series was the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai. His economic policy may have been aggressive but his foreign policy was neither aggressive nor was it about abusing the neighbor. But his government gave a strong diplomatic response to 26/11 and put Pakistan on the defensive. At present, China did not commit an incident like Galban during his tenure.
Dr. Manmohan Singh will be remembered as a decent politician for deepening the roots of democracy in India and pushing fascism back in India by at least ten years. Looking at him, it seems that he was working as a Prime Minister in the same way as he had been doing as a professor or as the Governor of the Reserve Bank. It seems that he entered politics after reading Chaudhary Charan Singh’s book on ‘Shisthachar’. In fact, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s tenure seems to be a mirror to Modi’s tenure of the last ten years.
