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| Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s second term in office has been damaged by corruption scandals and policy paralysis. |
NEW DELHI — India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh helped set his country on the path to modernity, prosperity and power, but critics say the shy, soft-spoken 79-year-old is in danger of going down in history as a failure.
The architect of India’s economic reforms,
Singh was a major force behind his country’s rapprochement with the
United States and is a respected figure on the world stage. President
Obama’s aides used to boast of his tremendous rapport and friendship with Singh.
But 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.
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.
The story of Singh’s dramatic fall from grace
in his second term in office and the slow but steady tarnishing of his
reputation has played out in parallel with his country’s decline on his
watch. As India’s economy has slowed and as its reputation for rampant corruption has reasserted itself, the idea that the country was on an inexorable road to becoming a global power has increasingly come into question.
“More
and more, he has become a tragic figure in our history,” said political
historian Ramachandra Guha, describing a man fatally handicapped by his
“timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty.”
The irony is
that Singh’s greatest selling points — his incorruptibility and
economic experience — are the mirror image of his government’s greatest
failings.
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.
In the process, he transformed himself from an
object of respect to one of ridicule and endured the worst period in his
life, said Sanjaya Baru, Singh’s media adviser during his first term.
Attendees
at meetings and conferences were jokingly urged to put their phones
into “Manmohan Singh mode,” while one joke cited a dentist urging the
seated prime minister, “At least in my clinic, please open your mouth.”
Singh
finally did open his mouth last week, to rebut criticism from the
government auditor that the national treasury had been cheated of
billions of dollars after coal-mining concessions were granted to
private companies for a pittance — including during a five-year period
when Singh doubled as coal minister.
Singh denied that there was
“any impropriety,” but he was drowned out by catcalls when he attempted
to address Parliament on the issue. His brief statement to the media
afterward appeared to do little to change the impression of a man whose
aloofness from the rough-and-tumble of Indian politics has been
transformed from an asset into a liability.
“It has been my
general practice not to respond to motivated criticism directed
personally at me,” he said. “My general attitude has been, ‘My silence
is better than a thousand answers; it keeps intact the honor of
innumerable questions.’ ”
Source : The Washington Post
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