I asked him: ‘What should be our approach to the media?’ He replied: ‘It should be an essay in persuasion and not an essay in coercion.’
Manish Tewa
IT would be trite to say that Dr Manmohan Singh was an institution. He was a colossus who strode the economic and governance firmaments like an original intellectual giant in a landscape populated by pygmies.
Manmohan Singh was born at Gah, now in Pakistan. He crossed over to India as a refugee during the Partition. By the dint of hard work and perseverance, he built a life for himself as a distinguished professor, thought leader, economist of repute, governance expert, union minister and, finally, the Prime Minister of India.
He held a diverse array of positions. However, he was always polite to a fault, humble, self-effacing, the epitome of gravitas, carrying success lightly on his shoulders. Perhaps, his humble origins and the traumatic Partition deeply impacted and influenced him at a subliminal level, giving him an acute sense of the ethereal nature of power and positions.
Serving in such positions as Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance and RBI Governor gave him an understanding of the economic and governance challenges. As Finance Minister from 1991-1996, he leveraged this understanding to preside over the most fundamental reset of India’s economic trajectory when he dismantled the licence quota permit raj and unshackled the creative animal spirits of India’s economic entrepreneurs. This reset took place when the post-World War-II world order had collapsed and political scientists were predicting the end of history.
He created a new world for millions of youth in the post-globalisation and -liberalisation period. It is unfortunate that the political lexicon and language of India never mirrored the economic reset and remains populist to this day.
As Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from 1998 to 2004, he brought a quiet dignity to the august office at a time when political polarisation had made parliamentary proceedings extremely toxic and contentious, to put it mildly.
As PM, he staked his government to break the nuclear apartheid that had been plaguing India since the first nuclear test on May 18, 1974, when the Buddha smiled in the deserts of Rajasthan at Pokhran.
His experience in the mid-1970s as Member Finance of both the Atomic Energy Commission and Space Commission, perhaps, gave him a bird’s eye view of how various constraining global architectures created in the aftermath of that peaceful nuclear explosion had impacted India’s nuclear and space programme adversely. Notably, the architectures included the London Suppliers Club founded in 1974 (later called Nuclear Suppliers Group — NSG) to stunt India’s nuclear potential by restricting access to technology and materials.
After becoming PM in 2004, Dr Singh built upon the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott dialogue held in the aftermath of India’s second nuclear test held in May 1998. It led to a second reset in Indo-US relations, with the signing of a New Framework for India-US Defence Relations on June 28, 2005, marking the full-scale start of defence cooperation between the two countries. Twenty days later, on July 18, 2005, the US and India announced the launch of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative. Under this, India agreed to commit all of its civilian nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards.
In 2004, the Congress had only 145 seats in the 14th Lok Sabha. It was dependent on support of the CPI-M, CPI and others, who had 55 seats. The Left has had an anti-imperialist and, by extension, an anti-US worldview. It was an ideological anathema in the global world order after the collapse of the Communist USSR and its East European satellites in 1991.
In June 2008, Dr Singh threw down the gauntlet and announced that India would go ahead with the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal. Ironically, the BJP — the author of the reset with the US after the 1998 nuclear test and a signatory to the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership in 2004 — brought a no-confidence motion against Dr Singh’s UPA government in July 2008. Dr Singh, in turn, tabled a vote of confidence. Among unprecedented scenes in the Lok Sabha — including the then opposition (BJP) displaying wads of currency notes in the House — the government won the vote. It paved the way for the Indo-US nuclear deal to become a reality. It led to a historical waiver by the NSG — probably ‘the’ first for any Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) non-signatory.
In the 2009 General Election, the Congress swept every city — a fact attributed to the exotic N-deal, which had a magical effect on the middle classes, even as its clauses were never ever fully appreciated.
Dr Singh’s second term as PM from 2009-14 was also marked by major reforms, like permitting foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail. His foreign policy was characterised by friendly relations with the neighbours, including a robust back-channel dialogue with Pakistan that produced a Four-Point Formula, colloquially called the Manmohan- Musharraf Agreement. If actioned, it would have changed the dynamics of South Asia. Unfortunately, in 2007, after the Lal Masjid siege and lawyers’ strike in Pakistan, the calculation of foreign office mandarins in New Delhi was that Musharraf had lost the political capital to be able to carry the people of Pakistan along with him on the Formula.
It probably represents a historical once-in-a-century missed opportunity for not only India and Pakistan but also the region.
Great power relations witnessed an unprecedented degree of stability. Despite an overt reset with the US, Dr Singh finessed Russia-China dynamics. Not only were relations with Russia stable, but an unprecedented number of border management and economic cooperation deals were also signed with China.
Dr Singh was at the receiving end of a corrosive onslaught by the capitalist-controlled media, to which, ironically, he had provided boundless opportunities, too, by unshackling the Indian economy. Despite the unfair barrage, he never lost his calm.
As his Information and Broadcasting Minister and spokesperson of the government, I had to do the heavy lifting of putting the government’s point of view in the public space from 2012-2014. One day, while flying to Ludhiana for the golden jubilee celebrations of Punjab Agricultural University on December 8, 2012, I asked him: “What should be our approach to the media?” He replied: “It should be an essay in persuasion and not an essay in coercion.” I pushed back, saying that a biased and agenda-driven paradigm could not be influenced by persuasion because they were puppets of their masters, who were elsewhere. Unconvinced, he thoughtfully added: put yourself in the shoes of the opposition and imagine what it would be thinking if the entire media is turned into a government mouthpiece by using coercive means through the misuse of government instrumentalities. His prophetic words came true in the decade that followed his premiership.
At the January 3, 2014, press conference, Dr Singh gave an excellent summation of his 10 years as PM. Replying to a question, he stated philosophically: “History will judge me more kindly.” The Press, rather than focusing on the substance of his talk, concentrated on his announcement that he would be retiring after completing his second term in May. One newspaper even ran a photograph of an ‘exit’ sign over a door and Dr Singh walking towards it. It was an eloquent testimony to the ignominy he was put through — primarily because he was a decent person. This, notwithstanding that Dr Singh held a record number of press conferences during his tenure as PM, both in India and abroad.
On December 26, 2024, he breathed his last. All that needs to be said is that a gentleman is with us no more. Adieu, Sir —another world awaits.