Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh calls himself an accidental Prime Minister. Be that as it may, with the Indo-US nuclear deal and consequent liberation of India from the 34-yearold technology denial regime, he has secured his place in history as one of the notable Prime Ministers of this country. He joins the ranks of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in shaping and advancing India’s progress in international politics. Nehru formulated India’s non-aligned strategy, not nonalignment as a doctrine. Shastri thwarted Pakistan’s carefully laid plans to seize Kashmir and humiliate India. Indira Gandhi won the Bangladesh war and conducted Pokhran nuclear test. Rajiv Gandhi ordered the assembly of nuclear weapons when his far-sighted nuclear disarmament plans were ignored by the UN, Narasimha Rao nurtured the nuclear arsenal and liberalised the economy with the assistance of Manmohan Singh, and Vajpayee conducted the Shakti Tests and declared India a nuclear-weapons state. Vajpayee also initiated the dialogue with all major powers of the world to ensure India’s rightful place in the international system. But it was given to Manmohan Singh to complete the process of liberating India from technology apartheid, obtain recognition for India as a power with nuclear weapons outside the Non-proliferation Treaty but no longer boycotted by the international community. India today has strategic partnership with US, European Union, Russia, Japan and China. And it is recognised as one of the six balancers of power. India is invited to G-8 summit along with China. Manmohan Singh understood well the changes in the international trends and the opportunities the post-Cold-War world order presented to India. He enabled Indian entrepreneurship to take full advantage of the favourable international trends. The result was the unprecedented 8 per cent growth rate. His handicap was the political alliance with the Left, still steeped in Stalinist and Cold War orthodoxy. This resulted in his reform programme being slowed down. In the first four years, he appears to have opted to keep the government going. However, in the fifth year, he faced the choice of sacrificing the opportunity to achieve for India the liberation from technology apartheid and recognition as a legitimate sixth nuclear power or a few more months in office without risking a confidence vote. He decided to stake the life of the coalition government. He succeeded in winning the vote of confidence for his government and timed it well. That timing generated pressures on international community to get India the IAEA safeguards, the NSG waiver and completion of the Indo-US nuclear deal in quick succession. In the immediate future the IAEA safeguards, the NSG waiver and the Indo-US nuclear deal are bound to be criticised by his opponents. But he has established his place in history.Manmohan Singh has been reviled by his opponents. That is nothing new in Indian politics. Shastri was called a prisoner of indecision. Indira Gandhi was called a Goongi Gudiyah. Rao was famous for his exposition that no decision was itself a decision. What Manmohan Singh has done is irreversible, just as his liberalisation and globalisation were. It is to be seen how he is going to use his newly won clout. That will not make him a conventional politician. His understanding of the international political and economic trends is far superior to that of most of our politicians. There is talk of his being projected as UPA’s Prime Ministerial candidate in the coming elections. The present achievements, the NSG waiver and the Indo-US nuclear deal would certainly justify this.
BJP leader LK Advani made a scathing attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accusing him of being the ‘most incompetent' Prime Minister and ‘devaluing' his office and said no decision is taken without the consent of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. "Manmohan Singh, when not a politician, was held in high esteem.But today compared with the past 14 prime ministers of our country, he is the most incompetent one as prime minister of India",alleged Advani.