Manmohan Singh: The politician who was defeated by politics

The biggest myth about Manmohan Singh was that he wasn’t a politician. UPA Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Bravery awards function at PM’s residence in the Capital, in 2006. No one can survive the complex maze that is the Indian political system as a lateral entrant from academia to the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, embed oneself in ministries such as commerce and finance, lead institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India and Planning Commission, work with multiple prime ministers from Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi to Chandra Shekhar to PV Narasimha Rao, navigate the world of international economic policymaking, make the transition from being a bureaucrat to a minister, become the leader of the opposition, and then serve as the prime minister of a country as large, messy, and complex as India for 10 years, as the head of a coalition government with the real power centre being elsewhere, without having a strong political sense. And it was his political sense that helped Singh in cultivating relationships with those who exercise power, grabbing each opportunity that came his way, pushing when possible and retreating when he smelt danger, knowing the big picture always, offering that as a rationalisation while making compromises, and using the combination of understated manner, quiet humility, non-threatening persona, and sheer brilliance to be one of India’s most important post-Independence leaders. His experience and credibility as a reformer, his track record as a man of integrity, his personal story from a village in what is now Pakistan through Punjab to Oxbridge to the Delhi School of Economics to North Block may have all been factors in Sonia Gandhi’s decision to pick him as the PM in 2004 — but, arguably, the biggest factor was that Singh did not have a mass base and he wasn’t an operator in the corridors of power and this allowed the family to trust him.