India's "Manmohan" labour pain

To,

Dr Manmohan Singh,

Prime Minister of India

Sub: A thank you and bye. 

Dear Sir,

The pain of heart is most cruel. Most of us would reckon that you are heart-broken. We think so for the reason, that the Congress has apparently disowned you. You will be within your right to lament the Indian politics. You still have a full one and a half years to go before your tenure ends. Also, most of us agree that the UPA-II got mandate till 2014 because of you only. 

But Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is clearly in a hurry. She had been unwell for some time. No one knows for sure the future. Also, the future is full of surprises. Therefore, the wise men suggest that you should do what you can during your time. So, the mother had to take a hard look at the wayward career of her son. Dr Singh, you will appreciate the fact that India can have a Prime Minister like you but the Congress can not look beyond the "Family". Unlike his mother, the son will stake claim on the Prime Minister's post. He is already 42.

Dr Manmohan Singh

It's evident that your party has lost trust in your leadership. This is for the reason, that the "son" Rahul Gandhi is riding on the mantra of "change the system". You too may have cried like all at the Jaipur Chintan Shivir, after the young Gandhi invoked the maxim that "power is poison" but still he was embracing the poison, as he seeks service for the people. 

For full eight and a half years, the power as poison had been quite nectar for you. Even for P V Narsimha Rao, power had been quite a nectar. This was also a case with Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Both of your predecessors knew that life without power made them lifeless. But no one can correct Rahul Gandhi, at least within the Congress. Therefore, you may have watched with much agony the clamour for "change the system" propounded by Rahulji. 

I, like many others, wonder what would you do in the remaining time before you cede the position to either Rahulji or one of his rivals (if the Opposition at all succeeds in denying the UPA a third term). You have lost the political legitimacy. Without any physical handicap, you are not going to be UPA candidate in the next elections. This must hurt you the most. It's so because, you hold the distinction of giving Congress an unprecedented victory, which even Rajiv Gandhi did not have.

A lot of commentaries would be written once you relinquish your post very soon. Every Prime Minister wishes to leave behind a legacy. Before you, Vajpayee made the nation nuclear and heralded rural and telecom connectivity. Rao unveiled new economy and brought India closer to South-east Asia. 

Of course, you can stake claim for signing Indo-US nuclear deal. Also, you can take credit for allowing FDI in multi-brand retail. You had once famously told former US President George Bush that all of India love him. Your critics, however, claim that you hardly know India and hence should not have boasted. Still, you should hope that business houses in the US would adore you the most and be always in debt to you for the favour you have done to them. 

You had promised that light will dawn on India after the nuclear deal. But I am afraid a larger part of India lives in darkness after sun sets in the evening. Even the approved power plants could not take off in your regime. Your landmark decision to open the multi-brand retail is now in litigation and Supreme Court is also interested to know of the compelling reasons behind the decision. Additionally, traders and petty shopkeepers swear on your name.

But you should thank your stars that Pakistan has been bleeding for most part of your tenures due to its own follies. The border had largely been peaceful though the jawans on the line had been a little adventurous sometimes and the news channel suggested you to go for war. But thanks to your cool-headedness, you have resisted the trappings. 

You have been like a lawyer pursuing the 26/11 perpetrators. Even your best friend the US emerged quite protective of David Coleman Headley, who effortlessly videographed and laid the grounds for the Mumbai terror attacks. But what could you have done. Pakistan is a rogue nation and you are helpless. But it's a good decision, that you deprived Pakistan of an opportunity to host you.

Your economic critics slam you for turning India into a crony capitalism. The rich are getting richer and the poor more poorer. Even countries like Thailand have done better than India in reducing the absolute number of poor. But you have been blessed with friends like Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who has enjoyed the privilege of lecturing the chief ministers annually.

Even before Rahulji stripped you of all the credibility, your favourite P Chidambaram became the face of the government. Housewives do not like you but that should not bother you, as other than your wife you may not be knowing any homemaker. You can not repeat sixth pay commission always on poll eve, so even babus do not like you any more. You also can not waive off farmers' loans all the times on poll eve, so even they do not like you any more. Poor farmers, they have also been hit by erratic Monsoon. Bad omen for the UPA before 2014 date with the people.

You have never been a politician and hence you should not be criticized for not connecting with the people in the time of crisis. So, the "Occupy Raisina Hills", Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal campaigns kept jolting your government from time to time. 

BJP leader L K Advani must have cursed his fate for running his 2009 campaign on "weak PM" premise. You were the fountain of honesty and knowledge at that time. People punished Advani in most sever term. But people claim that you punished them for no faults by hoisting on them A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Adarsh scam, coal scam...the list is quite long. 

No one buys your excuse of coalition compulsion for such brazen loot of the national wealth. Suddenly, land and concrete buildings have become gold, thanks to mammoth black money being pumped into them. You may also be worried as an economist that the capital (savings) are being pumped into speculative places. 

Some say that if you had retired after the UPA-I, you would have been remembered as the most successful Prime Minister. The global growth engine ran out of the fuel and Indian growth story too became a casualty. So, you can not sign off on a high note now.

Notwithstanding all the diggings of your faults, I must salute you for being the longest serving Prime Minister outside the Gandhi family. You have proved that the Gandhi family is not the repository of all the acumen. Since power had not been a poison to you, you can walk into your sunset with head held high. In fact, experts may after some time may credit you for liberating the Indian democracy from the confines of 10, Janpath. 

Now even P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh can dream of becoming Prime Minister.             

Therefore, you need not be heart-broken. Your tenure was akin to the labour pain. A better India will surely be born.

With warm regards,

Manish Anand

   

The Rahul Gandhi matrix

It's time for the BJP to play the next move on the chessboard. What is worrisome is the prospect that the BJP's ability to swiftly position Modi against Rahul may just dwarf the scion of the Congress.

The chessboard has been spread for 2014 general elections. The Congress has made the first move. With Rahul Gandhi as the party vice-president, Congress will position its aces. On the other side, the obvious opponent is BJP. The saffron party will play the next move. In politics surprises are scant and the BJP will obviously position its mascot Narendra Modi against Gandhi.  

With the clamour for Rahul as the next Prime Ministerial candidate growing within the Congress, incumbent PM Manmohan Singh is in quite an embarrassing position. The Congress has lost its confidence in him, with full one and a half years to go for the UPA-II to complete its term. Thus, the grapevine of an early Lok Sabha poll would only get more credence with each passing day.

The Congress will have much more challenges to deal with and topping them would be undoing the failure of the Manmohan Singh led government. If the Congress itself does not have confidence in Dr Singh, the party can hope for sever backlash from the people.

Further the party is paying more attention to the idea of a new India who live in the social media. Ironically, Rahul is the most bashed politician on the social media. So, the Congress risks entering into an untested water, with questionable diagnosis that the new India lives on the social media. With Rahul's most of the men themselves spending most of their time on "tabs", he further risks himself being herded into a dark alley. 

Digvijaya Singh had been the shepherd of Rahul for most part of his political career. Singh is a man who lost his home-turf in Madhya Pradesh to the BJP. He is a politician literally in a no-man's land. The BJP riding on its politics of delivering governance has deprived Singh of any chance to claw back into his home territory. 

Singh and his other associates had wrongly taken Rahul to mask himself as an angry man ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. A thorough gentleman that Akhilesh Yadav is scripted a campaign on ground realities, which ultimately cut Rahul and his men to size that for months they did not show their faces in the state. Therefore, Rahul will have to choose his aces well, as his opponent, who has handed over Congress defeat after defeat is a master of the political chess.

While Rahul has not much to show as his achievements apart from pushing Union ministers to draft some Bills (Land, Food, etc.), Modi has demonstrated that his is the master of the politics of delivering governance to the people.

Rahul and his team may blind themselves behind the flawed narrative of the Delhi media on Modi, that he butchered 1,000 Muslims, and hence he would always remain an untouchable, as all around him would smell the blood dripping off his body. 

The flawed Modi narrative banks on the premise that he within less than a year of being the CM of the state would have enjoyed so much power and obedience from the administration that with the drop of a hint he allowed killing of over 1,000 Muslims. Reality check: Akhilesh Yadav even after six months as CM is still pleading with bureaucrats to listen to him; Mamata Banerjee is puzzled even after more than a year how to make the bureaucrats to forget that they were still Marxists; the list is long. 

"If the BJP were to anoint Modi as its leader, Uttar Pradesh will be vertically split and the saffron party could see its fortune swinging back to those days of Adavni's peak," a Lok Sabha MP of the BSP had surmised.

The game of chess is played as an art. Politics is also an art. In politics, leaders have to out-think their opponents. Nitish Kumar out thought his opponents -- Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. Akhilesh Yadav out thought his opponent --Rahul and BJP -- by scripting a manifesto which answered the woes of all communities. The Manmohan magic till 2009 gave false impression to Rahul and his coterie that he has become a leader.

Rahul has been strategising for over five years to bring in youth in the ambit of the Congress. After five years, he realized that he would no more launch a membership campaign and would rather go with the model of the CPI (M) for open membership. His learning by trial and error is painfully slow. 

Ironically, slow learners risk becoming outdated in politics.

The Jaipur Chintan Shivir begun on the note that the Congress can not come to power on its own, which though is quite apparent, it is quite defeatist to state so. The Shivir is ending with euphoria with appointment of Rahul as vice-president.

It's time for the BJP to play the next move on the chessboard. What is worrisome is the prospect that the BJP's ability to swiftly position Modi against Rahul may just dwarf the scion of the Congress.

The game should be equal but chances of it becoming loaded in favour of the other is quite strong.