by Sanjaya Baru
With those words of unsolicited advice, I left and returned to Singapore. He did not contest the elections. I never asked him if he had indicated an interest in doing so and was advised against it, or if he was not even asked and had reconciled himself to remaining a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Back in Singapore I would get the occasional email or telephone call from a journalist who would bring me up to speed with election news and political gossip. Many believed that Dr Singh’s face had been printed on the cover of the manifesto and on election posters so that the expected defeat in that election could be explained away as his defeat and Rahul Gandhi, whose picture was not printed on the party manifesto or posters, could then claim leadership as the agent of change. One senior political journalist who claimed he had spoken to Ahmed Patel told me that Rahul, in fact, looked forward to a tenure as the leader of the Opposition so as to burnish his own political credentials, differentiating himself, perhaps even distancing himself, from Dr Singh’s legacy. Few expected the Congress to return to power until almost the very end of the campaign. They all underestimated Dr Singh’s popularity and the lacklustre image of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani, among his own partymen.
When the results came in, not only had the UPA won a clear majority but the Congress improved its tally from 145 seats in UPA-1 to 206. While this represented only a modest shift in vote share—the Congress’s vote share went up by 2.02 per cent—it represented wider urban support for the Congress. The UPA not only won almost all the seats in all metros, save Bengaluru, but also saw a 19 per cent increase in urban votes compared to a 14 per cent increase in the rural vote. In 2004 it was Sonia Gandhi who helped the Congress move up from the 114 of 1999 to 145 seats. In 2009, it was Dr Singh’s tenure during UPA-1 that helped the party secure 206 seats—nine more than the 197 seats that Rajiv Gandhi managed to deliver in 1989, after five years in office. In Punjab, the Congress saw a massive 11 per cent increase in vote share, five times more than the national increase in the Congress’s vote share. Had Dr Singh contested from Amritsar, he would have won easily. Dr Singh’s five years of 9 per cent growth, his standing up to the Left on the nuclear deal in defence of the national interest, and the BJP voters’ disappointment with Advani’s lacklustre leadership had helped win the urban voter over.
The fear generated by Dr Singh’s critics in the Congress party that the nuclear deal would alienate Muslim voters proved to be misplaced. The theory that the rural employment guarantee programme would be a vote winner was also disproved by the fact that the country’s more backward states voted for the BJP and other parties, while it was western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and a clutch of urban centres that gave the Congress its additional seats. What rural and Muslim voters had said to Vidya Subrahmaniam of The Hindu, when asked who they would support, truly summed up the mood. ‘Congress ko. Sardarji ko,’ they had said, calling the PM a ‘neyk aadmi (good man).
This was also a historic verdict. For the first time after 1962, a sitting prime minister who had served a full five-year term was being re-elected with an improved majority. Indira Gandhi entered office in the middle of a term and got re-elected in 1971, after victory in a war with Pakistan, so she did not get two full terms in succession. After Nehru no PM has managed to get re-elected after a full five-year term. Vajpayee’s re-election in 1999 followed a premature end to his first term. Dr Singh’s victory was a game changer.
On the day of the victory, as results poured in, I was watching the news on CNN-IBN on my laptop at home. The panellists were discussing if the stunning results were because of Manmohan Singh. Then the channel’s political reporter Pallavi Ghosh appeared on the screen, reporting from the Congress party office. She had Prithviraj Chavan with her.
‘So who is the architect of this victory?’ Pallavi asked Prithvi. ‘Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh?’
Prithvi, the man who was handpicked by Dr Singh to be his MoS in the PMO and kept there for a full five years despite a lacklustre record, said the politically correct thing, ‘Both!’ He then added a spin, ‘This victory is a vote for Rahul Gandhi. Rahulji’s good work helped us win.’
The chant became the official mantra. Rahul Gandhi, every party loyalist claimed, was the architect of the 2009 result. In the very hour of victory, its authorship was denied to the man who made it happen.
The way I saw it, if the Congress had lost, the blame for the defeat would have been placed squarely on the PM’s shoulders. It would be said his obsession with the nuclear deal cost the party the support of the Left and the Muslims. His ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies would have been deemed to have alienated the poor. His attempt to befriend Musharraf would have been regarded as having alienated the Hindu vote. A hundred explanations would have been trotted out to pin the defeat on the PM. Now that the party was back in office, and that too with more numbers than anyone in the party had forecast, the credit would go to the party’s ‘first family’. To the scion and future leader. It was Rahul’s victory, not Manmohan’s.
After the elections, Dr Singh did try to be more assertive, taking a view on who would be in his Cabinet and who would not, and resisting the induction of the DMK’s A. Raja and T.R. Baalu, for their unsavoury reputations. Watching from the sidelines, I had hoped he would not buckle under pressure. Dr Singh stood his ground for a day, managed to keep Baalu out, but had to yield ground on Raja under pressure from his own party. To me, it was a reiteration of the message that the victory was not his but the Family’s.
On 2 June 2009, I flew down to Delhi and met Dr Singh. I was told he would see me at 7 RCR. When I reached 7 RCR I was told he was at 3 RCR and I should go there. I decided to walk and took the path that Dr Singh would take almost every day, along the spacious lawns of 7 and 5 RCR, through the wall that separated them, with an expanse of green and tall trees all around. Meanwhile, Dr Singh had been informed that I had arrived at 7 RCR and chose to walk towards it. We met at 5 RCR. It was past ten in the morning in early June. The temperature must have already been upwards of 38 degrees Celsius. It felt blazing hot. I asked him why he was walking in the hot sun.
‘Oh, this is nothing,’ he said, as he continued to walk briskly towards 7 RCR. ‘I campaigned in this heat.’
I had read about it in Singapore. Everyone was amazed that after a major surgery in February, he was out campaigning in April-May. Dr Singh was a step ahead of me. Murali and I were walking behind him, with the SPG guards a step behind.
He half turned his head towards me. I could see the expression of great pride on his face when he said, ‘I was willing to sacrifice my life for the victory.’
He asked me what my plans were. I told him that my contract required me to give two months’ notice. If I gave in my resignation that very day, I would be able to join by 1 August. But, I clarified, I did not want to return as media adviser. Deepak Sandhu was doing a good job as his press secretary. I could help her and support her but it was best she continued. I could be called ‘adviser to PM’ and do whatever he wanted me to.
‘You can be called secretary to PM. Dhar Saheb used to be called secretary to PM,’ he said.
The reference to Professor P.N. Dhar, the Delhi School economist who was inducted into Indira Gandhi’s PMO and worked alongside P.N. Haksar, left me surprised and flattered. I had enormous regard for Dhar, with whom I made friends during my days as editorial page editor of the Times of India, persuading him to publish his account of what transpired at Shimla in 1972 between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, twenty-five years after the event. According to him, Bhutto had been ready to settle Kashmir at the summit, but Indira, showing statesmanship, did not force concessions that he would have found hard to defend at home. Dhar’s column, when published, received a lot of attention in Pakistan and India, and we would discuss this often. In the process, I learnt about his special relationship with Indira, as an adviser with an academic rather than a bureaucratic background.
So I was excited by Dr Singh’s reference to
Dhar and his suggestion that I could play that kind of a role in the PMO. But I was not comfortable with the designation of secretary in the PMO, though that was the rank I had had as media adviser. If I was designated ‘secretary’ rather than ‘adviser’, I would have to report to the principal secretary. As media adviser, I reported directly to the PM, so I suggested he designate me ‘adviser’ rather than ‘secretary’. He agreed, and I went back to Singapore.
On 3 June, I submitted my resignation to Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where I taught. I shared with Kishore my real reason for quitting but requested him to keep it confidential. A few days later, a government gossip website, www.whispersinthecorridors.com, reported that I would be returning to the PMO. I had no idea how the news had leaked out but I put it down to just intelligent guesswork or speculation. The ‘whispers’ website was normally fed by secretarial staff and reporters. Someone might have seen me at RCR and put two and two together.
The editor of Business Standard T.N. Ninan called me a few days later to say that his correspondent had filed a report that I was to return to the PMO and would be made responsible for monitoring implementation of the UPA’s flagship programmes. I told him I was not aware of this. He assured me that the reporter had secured the story from Prithviraj Chavan and said BS would run it unless I denied it. I assumed Prithvi had briefed the reporter after having been told of the decision by the PM. So I did not deny it but asked Ninan to make sure the story was authenticated by the PMO. Little did I suspect that this leak might have been part of an effort to sabotage my return.
The day after the BS story appeared, Jaideep called me and said that the news report had created problems ‘with the party’ and that the PM had asked him to advise me to delay my return. I told him that I had already submitted my resignation and it would be embarrassing for me to tell the dean that I would just hang around till some uncertain date in the future without taking up any teaching work. I could either return on 1 August or on 1 January, after teaching for one more semester. Jaideep suggested I come to Delhi and meet the PM.
It was not convenient for me to make a trip to Delhi at that time. I was in the middle of teaching and other work. I was also angry and irritated by this turn of events. To tell the truth, I was dismayed by the PM’s display of spinelessness, even after this handsome victory. If he was unable to make appointments in his own office, he was ‘yielding space’ too soon. That phrase—yielding space—was one that I had picked up from him when he advised me not to drop out of a tour with him because someone else would end up doing my job. Why, I wondered, was he yielding space now, succumbing to pressure to keep me out? Clearly, I had not yet understood the extent to which the party would go to defang the PM.
I told Jaideep that I could not afford to buy another ticket, having just gone to Delhi and returned at my own expense, so I would come in early July after a scheduled trip to Kathmandu for which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was paying. I was doing a report on SAARC for the ADB. I flew into Delhi from Kathmandu on 11 July and met the PM the same day.
‘Some problems have come up regarding your appointment, can you delay your return?’ Dr Singh asked me. I explained my constraints.
‘Okay, you come back in August. I will sort this out by then.’
After that brief exchange, the conversation moved on to the agenda for the new term. He wanted ideas on moving forward with Pakistan, since he was shortly to meet his new Pakistani counterpart SyedYousaf Raza Gilani in Sharm el-Sheikh.We also talked about his priorities for the economy and the relationship with the US, under a new President. Barack Obama had not voted in favour of the nuclear deal. I also warned him that the BJP would be even more critical of the government in its second term, since the party would be fighting for survival, having performed even worse in 2009 than in 2004. The conversation went in various directions, and then it was time for me to leave.
I returned to Delhi on Saturday, 1 August and sought an appointment with the PM for the 3rd. When I did not hear from the PMO for the next four days I knew something had gone seriously wrong. Finally, I was asked to see Dr Singh on Saturday, 8 August at 5 p.m. in the evening at 3 RCR. This was exactly one year, to the day, since I had quit the PMO.
When I arrived Nair was with him and I was asked to wait in an anteroom. I could hear their voices and then there was silence. The door opened and Murali invited me in. Nair had left, walking out of a side door, and Dr Singh was alone, seated on a sofa and looking pale and anxious. The last time I had seen him like this was on the night of the terror attack in Srinagar, when he had to make up his mind whether he should go to Kashmir the next day against the advice of his officials and launch the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.
I sat down and waited for him to speak. I avoided the usual pleasantries and the pointless ‘how are you’. He remained motionless. Even the peacocks had gone quiet. He finally broke that deafening silence.
‘I cannot take you back into the PMO. Why don’t you become a member of the Planning Commission for now? I will see later how to bring you back here.’
I had expected to hear something like this. I did not want to embarrass him by asking what had gone wrong. I guessed this was part of the party’s effort to limit his degree of freedom. One more blow. Or, it might have been the work of the people around him, who had perhaps been happy to see me go and were not keen on my return. After all, I had been seen as the PM’s troubleshooter and troublemaker in UPA-1. I had been unwilling to kowtow to the party High Command or yield space to my senior colleagues. I had encouraged the PM to stand his ground on the nuclear deal, I had projected the PM rather than Sonia or Rahul, and so on. I then said what I had come prepared to say.
‘Sir, I joined you in 2004 because you wanted me to. I worked for you, not for the government. I have never fancied a government job. If you are having problems now, I will find something for myself outside government.’
I then told him I already had an offer from T.N. Ninan to succeed him as the editor of Business Standard. I would take that up. Dr Singh sat back and relaxed.
‘Oh good. That is even better than the Planning Commission.’ I took his permission to leave and stepped out, walking all the way, a good half kilometre, to the car park.
Several weeks later, after I joined Business Standard, I was invited for a function at 7 RCR. As he circulated among the guests Dr Singh walked up to me and asked why I had not come to see him for a long time. The next day, I sought an appointment and called on him. We talked about many things. Finally, he turned to the subject weighing on both our minds.
He said, ‘I am sorry about what happened. You see, you must understand one thing. I have come to terms with this. There cannot be two centres of power. That creates confusion. I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power. The government is answerable to the party.’
I saw no point in disagreeing with him or contesting his thesis. But, of course, I did disagree with it. The prime minister was answerable to the Parliament and the government was governed by the Constitution. The party president was only the leader of her party. The prime minister was the leader of the country as a whole and the head of government. One could go on and on, discussing these things threadbare. But this was neither the time, nor the place. Each one of us finds our own rationale for what we do and do not do. He had found his.
Epilogue
Manmohan’s Legacy
‘Am I in trouble?’
Manmohan Singh
October 2010
I have an indelible image in my mind of the way Dr Singh sat, on that summer morning of 2 June 2009, shortly after he had declared to me, in a moment of rare emotion, that he would have sacrificed his life ‘for the victory’. His normal posture was restrained and formal: he sat straight, with his hands resting on the arm of a chair or on his lap, much as he might do in a conversation with a visiting dignitary. But now, as we spoke of the election result, and much else, he was supremely at ease
, reclining with his right leg on his outstretched left, the right ankle resting on the knee of the left. It was a posture that exuded confidence, and suggested that he felt, at this moment, the master of all he surveyed. The one other time I recall seeing him sit like that was after the 123 Agreement was done in 2007.
The nuclear deal was the crowning glory of Manmohan Singh’s first term. As Narasimha Rao’s finance minister, he had made history by opening up the economy. Now, he had made history once again, by giving India a new status as a world power. Having conceded the greater part of the prime minister’s turf to Sonia and his senior colleagues, foreign policy was one area where he jealously guarded the space he had secured for himself. True, he retained his influence over economic policy through Chidambaram and Montek. But foreign affairs was his sole preserve and he made sure it stayed that way in UPA-1. It was the area where he could articulate his vision for India in a changing world, and project his personality, without coming into conflict with the priorities and the profile of the Congress president.
Had there been no opposition to the nuclear deal, it would have neither gained the prime minister notoriety among his critics, nor would it have imparted a statesman-like sheen to his image, at home and abroad. Had the BJP claimed credit for starting it all, or the Left claimed credit for shaping the final outcome, as some of its ‘moderates’ would have liked to do, the deal would have had many fathers. Had Sonia fully backed Dr Singh, the Congress would have claimed credit, reminding the country that it was Nehru who began India’s nuclear programme, Indira who first tested a bomb and Rajiv who authorized weaponization.
