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| Helpless PM fending for himself | | Washington Post On Manmohan Singh | | Rustam
JAMMU, Sept 7: It was the September 5 issue of the leading US-based international daily Washington Post that carried a story on its front page on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was not an ordinary story; it was, in fact, a blistering attack on him and the Government that he had been leading. Its very title suggested that Manmohan Singh was an utter failure. The title was "India's 'silent' Prime Minister becomes a tragic figure". The sub-title of the story was "Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's second term in office has been damaged by corruption scandals and policy paralysis". The title and sub-title of the story left none in any doubt that in the United States, our Prime Minister has become an object of ridicule and contempt. Significantly, the story writer, who is New Delhi-based bureau chief of Washington Post, defended what he had written when asked by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to tender an apology for writing one-sided story.
Stung by the very strong story on the Prime Minister and his Government, the PMO had on September 5 asked the author of the story to tender an unconditional apology and the following day registered its protest with Washington Post. What had stung the PMO the most was the view of the story writer that "the image of the scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt Government" and that "every day for the past two weeks, India's Parliament has been adjourned as the opposition bays for Singh's resignation over allegations of waste and corruption in the allocation of coal-mining concessions". Another assertion of the writer that had obviously stung the PMO was: "under Singh, economic reforms have stalled, growth has slowed sharply and the rupee has collapsed. But just as damaging to his reputation is the accusation that he looked the other way and remained silent as his cabinet colleagues filled their own pockets". The PMO also seems to have taken an exception to yet another formulation of the author of the story and the formulation was: The Prime Minister is "a man whose aloofness from the rough-and-tumble of India politics has been transformed from an asset into a liability".
The story writer not only wrote what he wrote about the Prime Minister, but he also included in his story the views of political historian Ramachandra Guha and Sanjaya Baru, former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - views which certainly angered the PMO. While Guha had described Manmohan Singh as "a man fatally handicapped by his "timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty", Baru had said that "he (Manmohan Singh) transformed himself from an object of respect to one of ridicule and endured the worst period in his life".
Indeed, the Washington Post story constituted a major attack on our Prime Minister. It's, however, true, that many media persons in India and many Indian political parties had expressed almost identical views from time to time after May 2009. The only difference was that there were many in the Government and the Congress and UPA, especially Lalu Prasad Yadav, who would counter the opposition attack and defend Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the hilt. But this time, the Congress as a party has not come to the rescue of our helpless Prime Minister. There is hardly any Congress general secretary and Congress spokesperson who has defended the Prime Minister. It's the PMO itself and a couple of Ministers, including Ambika Soni and Harish Rawat, who have questioned the story writer and his approach and intentions and defended the Prime Minister. Panthers Party chairman Bhim Singh is an exception. He did take on Washington Post, but it was a meaningless exercise.
The fact of the matter is that our Prime Minister, who hardly speaks, has been at the receiving end in India as well as abroad, with the influential media houses both in Delhi and Washington and London leaving no stone unturned to expose the weaknesses, limitations and failures of the UPA Government. One cannot but agree with those who say that the Prime Minister and the Congress have failed India. |
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