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Current Events
The Fall Guy:
Manmohan Singh
G. R. GOPINATH
New Delhi, India
Indian elections! It's dubbed the greatest show on earth. It dazzles the mind, warms the cockles of the heart, and elevates the spirit as you watch the grand spectacle unfold. No collective human endeavour on the planet can compare with it. The sheer numbers, size, scale, and complexity is staggering and boggles the mind.
But most of all the colour, the sound, the fury and the palpable energy of the contestants and their followers gives a pure adrenaline rush to those who participate and even to those who watch it.
And the show has truly begun.
Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, have all plunged head long travelling by jets, hopping by helicopters and addressing rallies after rallies haranguing, pumping up and working the crowds with their fiery speeches and claims to deliver the sun and the moon.
Arvind Kejriwal, though not hopping on jets and choppers, is tenaciously and frenetically covering as many constituencies by taking scheduled airlines and hitting the road and criss crossing the country.
One day in Arunachal, next day in Bangalore, the third in Rajasthan and another day in Kashmir or Punjab, they are criss-crossing the country.
Once a politician friend told me, when I asked how does some one who leads a party puts in 18 to 20 hours a day for a year, day after day, ceaselessly, without tiring, in the run up to elections with a kind of inexhaustible energy and stamina, she said, some people are possessed and she can only describe it as 'daitya shakti', meaning Demonic Strength.
Amidst all this razzle-dazzle, one principal actor is missing.
He is glaringly conspicuous by his absence and silence. Sardar Manmohan Singh.
The man who pulled India out of the abyss under Narasimha Rao's government, and steered the country to make it an economic powerhouse with far reaching visionary reforms as finance minister and who again did a spectacular job as prime minister under UPA I and got the economy roaring once more and also ably ensured passage of bills of momentous significance like the Right To Information, Right To Education, The Nuclear Cooperation Bill, and the Right To Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
He built a formidable brand India.
He is admired by global leaders and was the toast of the world in Davos.
He ensured India was insulated by the global financial crisis and melt down, which in fact paved way for UPA II.
But one who was considered a good and loyal Congressman by every one, is today sadly out of sight and out of mind.
Is it not a cruel irony that the sitting Prime Minister of a ruling party who has completed two terms as the Prime Minister, a rare record, under most trying conditions and compulsions of the worst kind of coalition politics, is ignored today on the election circuit and is not seen or heard in the very height of election season.
True, he can be blamed by the opposition or the public for not being assertive enough or for not putting his foot down when his Cabinet colleagues stepped out of line or when they behaved ignominiously and he failed to discipline them.
He can be accused by others for what they termed as his 'conspiracy of silence'.
But to be sidelined and humiliated thus in the heat of the elections, as though he's a man of no consequence, or of no use, by the very masters who controlled him and who as the head of government and a constitutional authority, did their bidding meekly, balancing precariously and dexterously - a dirty and dangerous job - while exposing himself to ridicule, blame and liability but at the same time protected the powers that controlled him, is lacking of all courtesy, who whatever his faults, is considered a decent man among his peers.
A good man has been made the 'fall guy'.
That is the most unkindest cut of all.
The author founded Air Deccan, the first low-cost, no-frills airline of India in August 2003.
[Courtesy: IBN. Edited for sikhchic.com]
April 7, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Gurjender Singh (Maryland, USA), April 07, 2014, 11:35 AM.
This is sad. He was the master-mind behind much of India's development. But most of the Indian population is treating him the same way they treat all who hail from minority groups.
2: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 07, 2014, 12:17 PM.
I will say the same thing any time this man's name is mentioned in the media: He heads a party which butchered his people. He had the audacity to mock his own community by issuing an apology on the behalf of the Congress. A Sikh delivered an apology to his own community, which was butchered by his own party. Makes no sense. It was done to make the pogrom seem like it wase political in nature rather than an ethnic cleansing. He is cut from the same cloth as the rest of the Congress.
3: Harinder Singh (Punjab), April 07, 2014, 1:21 PM.
He was like a CEO of the UPA Coalition. Though he did a lot of good work, his tenure as PM will be remembered by his detractors for numerous scams by his colleagues, such as 2 G, Coalgate, the Commonwealth Games, etc.
4: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 07, 2014, 3:45 PM.
Herein lies the message for all collaborators and stooges -- they are to be used and discarded. We will remember this guy as the one who lied at the UN, saying that no Sikhs were butchered in 1984!
5: N Singh (Canada), April 07, 2014, 6:38 PM.
To be honest I think he deserves all this. At his inauguration ceremony he quoted from the Sikh national anthem: "Deh shiva bar mohey ihai," which speaks of courage in the battlefield and never deserting it. However, he has never displayed any courage and, to be honest, he left the battlefield a long time ago. I agree with Sunny, #2.
6: Hardev Singh (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), April 07, 2014, 7:13 PM.
It is an ironic twist that Manmohan Singh has relegated his party of scandals and pogroms into near oblivion. His weakness was not of intellect but character, unblemished but weak.
7: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), April 07, 2014, 10:21 PM.
He was a fiscal genius and he put the Sikh identity on the global map, like Fauja Singh.
8: Jack (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), April 08, 2014, 2:45 PM.
I lost all respect for him years when he went to the UN to claim there were no human rights violations in India re Sikhs. Once a puppet, always a puppet. He has done more harm than good ...
9: Devinder Pal Singh (Delhi, India), April 09, 2014, 7:01 AM.
Manmohan Singh became the poster boy (man) for Congress, serving all its needs. He has appeared many a time to hold a magic wand for the country's economic prescriptions. Perhaps the laurels that followed such efforts served his ego and perhaps built an addiction that made him shun and discard all past associations. In the end, he today stands as lonely as the forgotten, burnt-out match-stick. There are still many of his associates from the Sikh cCommunity which do not see any different from him, maybe they will mend themselves or maybe we shall witness a similar end to their ambitions. Will we be able to accept back these prodigal sons? They definitely are aplenty both here in India and across the diaspora.
10: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA), April 09, 2014, 10:17 AM.
Manmohan Singh is an intellectual person and that is why he was picked up by Congress to serve as PM of India. He has more of saintly qualities and believes in serving people without any rancour and without any distinction whatsoever. He keeps his head cool and does not depart from leading India to path of progress. Regarding his devotion to Sikh community which most of the commentators on this forum are looking for, as a PM, Manmohan Singh approved two Sikh Chiefs of Staff to head the Indian Army.
11: Harman Singh (Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India), April 09, 2014, 3:57 PM.
Dr Manmohan Singh is truly a humble and saintly soul. He pulled India out of its economic crises. Respect for you, Sir!
12: Bikramjit Singh (London, United Kingdom), April 10, 2014, 11:29 PM.
A puppet will always get discarded after he is of no use to his masters. MMS sold out his soul in order to get the PM job. When an unbiased account of this period of Sikh history is written he will be counted among the KPS Gills and the Badals as those who betrayed their community. MMS is complicit in the genocide of the Sikh youth during the 90s when he was finance minister and controlled the cash bounties that were given to those who took part in the genocide.
13: Pritam Singh Hoonjan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), April 12, 2014, 8:35 AM.
Dr Manmohan Singh is very humble and saintly. He is an intellectual who got India out of the financial crisis it was endlessly mired in, and put India on the road to progress and development. He would have done much more, had he been given the freedom to do the needful. Sonia Gandhi kept that power to herself. He couldn't appoint his own cabinet ministers.
14: Pritam Singh Hoonjan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), April 15, 2014, 8:50 AM.
Sonia Gandhi appointed Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister of India, but kept the power to herself. Now, Dr Manmohan Singh's two secretaries have stabbed him in the back by writing two books against him ... timed, of course, to help the opposition at election time! It is sad to see a good man like him being thus denigrated, with his massive life-work over-looked, just when he's about to retire. This is the fate of minorities in India.
15: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA), April 15, 2014, 12:15 PM.
Pritam Singh ji: Whoever, and whatever one did to Manmohan Singh, the results are all in the hands of God. Manmohan Singh, despite his belonging to a minority group, will always be in chardi kalaa. The fact remains he was the man who put India on the path to progress.
16: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 16, 2014, 5:23 AM.
This guy was paraded in front of the world as the first "Sikh PM" of India as a display of "secular" credentials of a political party that carried out the mass murder of Sikhs, made to work against the interests of his own people which he happily did. He did nothing for his own people except offering hollow apologies and shedding crocodile tears, neither did he do justice to the office he held. Hey, now we know the reality of the "first Sikh PM" of India.
17: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA), April 16, 2014, 10:03 AM.
Manmohan Singh's social conscience is based on equality, fraternity and fellowship. Accordingly, he served as PM of India. And that is what our Gurus wanted - 'to solve all social, economic and political problems on the basis of equality'.