The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

by Sanjaya Baru

  Later, while preparing him for his address to the US Congress I had to indicate in the written text where he should expect applause from the audience and, therefore, pause before moving to the next sentence. Important sentences would be underlined so that he knew where to be more emphatic, though he rarely managed to be so. Whenever he recorded a TV interview or just a statement for telecast I would decide camera angles and also insist on re-recording if the PM made any mistake. Once the recording was done I would ensure that only the final approved version was available for telecast.

  His first televised address to the nation required three days of practice and the speech was recorded on the morning of 24 June in the conference room at Panchavati, 7 RCR, and telecast that night. Next morning, The Hindu’s lead story said: ‘Dr. Singh’s first public address was marked by an equanimous tone, thoughtful content, competent articulation and a tightly-written prose avoiding rhetorical flourishes, reflecting the Prime Minister’s own personality.’

  The Hindi part of the speech was written in the Urdu script. Born and educated in western Punjab, now Pakistan, Dr Singh had never learnt to read Hindi. His mother tongue was Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script, while Urdu was his language of instruction at school. Dr Singh was not merely proficient in Urdu, he was also very well versed in Urdu literature and poetry.

  Dr Singh deployed with skill his knowledge of Urdu poetry during his interventions in Parliament. He had a good repertory of appropriate quotes from such great poets as Ghalib, Faiz and Firaq. One of his favourite couplets, by the poet Muzaffar Razmi, which he quoted on more than one occasion, in Parliament and to Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, was: ‘Ye jabr bhi dekha hai, taareeq ki nazron ne / Lamhon ne khata ki thi, sadiyon ne saza payi’ (Much injustice / has been seen in the saga of history / When for a mistake made in a moment we are punished for centuries).

  Dr Singh’s Independence Day speech would always be written in Urdu, though some of his other Hindustani speeches were also written in Gurmukhi. While he would try from time to time to improve his delivery in public speaking and TV appearances, this never came naturally to him. Even a smile before TV cameras, a basic requirement for a politician, never came easily to him and I had to often get close to him, sometimes worrying the SPG guards, standing just a step away, to whisper in his ear, ‘Smile’.

  When the PM had to appear on TV to condemn a terror attack or express his grief I would insist he not read from a prepared text and speak to the camera. Over time he had become adept at reading from a teleprompter, but he never evolved into a good public speaker, either at large gatherings or on television.

  Before his first interaction with the media in July in Bangkok, I had gone into the PM’s room to ask him if he would like to freshen up before facing the media. His instant reply, with a smile, was, ‘Kya sher kabhi apne dant saaf karta hai?’ (Does a tiger ever brush its teeth?) I spun this as evidence of a new, confident Manmohan and many in the media lapped it up. But by the time Parliament met again, the Opposition was quick to resume its attack on the ‘weak PM’. Moreover, his decision to induct his own man, Montek, as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, was countered by Sonia’s decision to create an NAC filled with critics not just of Montek but also the PM. This did nothing for his image.

  What could Dr Singh do to show that he was the boss? Indeed, was he prepared to do anything at all? His shy and introverted personality was a barrier. His unwillingness to assert himself vis-a-vis senior Cabinet colleagues imposed limits on what a subordinate could do to project his image. There was also the additional problem of the Opposition painting him as an interloper because he was a member of the Rajya Sabha and not the Lok Sabha. After disrupting his opening address to Parliament, the BJP once again prevented Dr Singh from addressing Parliament when it reconvened in July.

  Dr Singh’s own attitude to the situation he was placed in was puzzlingly ambiguous. On occasion he would get irritated by suggestions that he was not his own man, at other times he would opt for a low profile and shy away from asserting his authority. Sometimes he would deliberately say or do things to establish his independence. A trivial but telling example was his angry response, still in the early days of his first term, to my question on whether a particular proposal that he was approving had Sonia Gandhi’s approval, and whether we should have it checked through Pulok.

  Dr Singh retorted, ‘I am the prime minister!’

  Yet, on another occasion, in September 2004, when a front-page report in the Hindi newspaper Punjab Kesari announced my imminent dismissal from the PMO (‘Sanjay Baru ki Chutti Hogi’) because, as it claimed, the Congress party leadership was unhappy with my style of functioning, Dr Singh said to me, ‘Why don’t you call on Sonia? They will stop bothering you.’ The reference was to those around Sonia who were seen to be planting stories in the media against me and the suggestion was that once I was seen having access to her all the sniping would end.

  I first responded by saying, ‘If you want me to, I will.’ He said he would secure an appointment for me. But I had second thoughts and suggested he drop the idea. My meeting her when I was under attack would be interpreted as my seeking her blessings to remain in office. I told him I took the PMO job because he asked me to work for him and I would leave the day he wanted me to. Why should I now seek her protection and be beholden to her? He remained silent. The subject was never raised again and I never called on Sonia during my entire tenure at the PMO.

  There was a trivial episode in the first few weeks after he assumed office that had me deeply worried because it not only drew attention to the PM’s excessively careful approach towards junior ministers known to be close to Sonia but also pointed to a willingness to look the other way when such ministers were accused of wrongdoing. The media reported that a junior minister of the Congress, Renuka Chowdhury, had written a letter to BJP leader Jaswant Singh seeking an appointment for an arms dealer when Jaswant was defence minister. There had been some criticism of this in the media. A reporter from a Telugu newspaper asked me whether the PM was aware of this and whether he had approved of her conduct. I saw no point in going to the PM for a reply. Moreover, I did not see how I could say the PM would approve of such conduct. So I offered a wishy-washy reply saying that while the PM was too busy and had not yet seen the news reports, he would of course never approve of any MP seeking an appointment for an arms dealer. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut, but these were early days in the job.

  The next day, the Telugu media reported that the PM had disapproved of Renuka’s interest in arms deals. That evening she called me and asked me if I had made that statement with the approval of the PM. I said I had not spoken to the PM and had made a general statement that the PM would not approve of such things. She then claimed that she had not written any such letter and that this was all fictitious stuff aimed at maligning her. She wanted me to issue a clarification stating that the PM had not said anything against her.

  I told her that I could not issue any such statement without the PM’s explicit instruction. She said she would meet the PM and ask him to instruct me. I waited anxiously for a summons from Dr Singh after her meeting with him. That did not happen. A few days later, Dr Singh asked me for my version of what had happened. After I offered it, he said with a smile, ‘Maybe you should go and make up. She is very angry.’

  I was flabbergasted. Renuka was not a senior enough party leader for a PM to worry if one of his officials had offended her. I told him that if I apologized to her, Renuka would go to town and not just claim that the PM had not reprimanded her for lobbying for an arms dealer, but, much worse, that the PMO had said sorry to a junior minister. I felt this would damage the PM’s image. I told him that the media would be happy to see him disapprove of such conduct and it was best to let matters rest there. He did not press me. The next day, Nair asked me if I was going to see Renuka to clear the air. A bit irritated, I asked him why she was considered that important.

  ‘Because she is
close to the party leadership,’ he replied.

  These incidents captured the limits the PM was willing to impose on his authority. It was not as if the PM condoned what Renuka had been accused of, it was just that he did not want to make a point of admonishing her publicly because she was regarded as being close to Sonia. This, I realized early, would be the source of his image problem, given that his political USP was the image of being a man of integrity.

  His personal integrity was, of course, never questioned. His driving his own Maruti 800 as the leader of the Rajya Sabha was a legend among Delhi’s journalists. Mrs Kaur serving tea herself to visitors to their home was another. He was probably the first prime minister in a long time who did not have a son or son-in-law in business or real estate. His daughters and sons-in-law were all salary-earning professionals. Which is probably why he felt no scandal would ever touch him even if he had not intervened to prevent it.

  This was the image that worked. Through UPA-1 that image sustained. Vidya Subrahmaniam of The Hindu reported from a village in Uttar Pradesh during the 2009 election campaign that when she asked several poor villagers whom they would vote for, they would say, ‘Congress ko. Sardarji ko,’ and that, she reported, was because the PM was seen by these simple folk as a ‘neyk aadmi’ (good and honest man). The ‘good man’ image had to be converted into a political asset and he had to be shown to be his own boss. That, I saw as my task as media adviser.

  Sharada Prasad agreed with me. ‘Tell the prime minister,’ he advised, ‘that he should be politically active, and do what he can and must as PM, without necessarily challenging her authority as party president.’ He suggested that the PM should meet chief ministers and write letters to them on matters of national importance. ‘Maybe you should arrange a press conference where he takes political questions and gives his personal views. The nation should know that the PM has a mind of his own.’

  The next day, I conveyed the gist of this conversation to Dr Singh. Without my having to persuade him too much, he agreed to address a press conference. I viewed the press conference as part of a larger strategy to build a credible Manmohan Singh brand. Unless people across the country had an intimate understanding of who this man was, it would never be possible to convince them that he was his own boss.

  There was no doubt in my mind that the PM needed to build his own personal credibility to be able to ensure the credibility of his government and of the country. I did not view the task of building his image as a personal favour to him; I saw it as a national duty. As Pranab Mukherjee put it to me emphatically years later, the country’s credibility depended on the PM’s credibility. What would the world think of India if it saw its PM as a political puppet?

  A short while later, during the budget session of Parliament in August 2004, an ill-considered initiative by L.K. Advani and George Fernandes offered a welcome opportunity to project the PM as a tough guy with a mind of his own. Advani and Fernandes led an NDA delegation to the PM suggesting changes to the finance bill. An irritated Dr Singh did not even invite his visitors to sit down, leave alone offering them a cup of tea. Dr Singh was not inclined to be kind to an Opposition that had ruined his first day in Parliament. He received them standing in his room and continued to stand so that they, too, had to present their letter standing. He accepted their file, but threw it down on the table without even reading it. Nonplussed, the delegation left the room.

  The NDA leaders went to the TV cameras outside the Parliament building and lodged a complaint that they had been ‘insulted’ by the PM. I was in South Block at the time. Subbu called me from the PM’s office in Parliament to explain what exactly had happened, in case the media asked me for a comment. He explained that the PM had not in fact ‘thrown’ the file down, as being alleged on TV, but that he had only ‘dropped’ it, since he was standing and the table was at a lower height. I grabbed the opportunity. I suggested to Subbu that we need not be defensive. Why explain that the PM meant no disrespect to the leaders of the Opposition, and that he had not ‘thrown’ the file down? Let us confirm what is being alleged and claim the PM was angry, irritated and tired of the Opposition’s disruptive ways.

  The media loved the story and interpreted it as evidence of a new ‘enough-is-enough, no-nonsense’ Manmohan Singh. Outlook magazine commented: ‘For Manmohan’s media managers, long despairing of changing their shy, workaholic and stiff boss into a more popular prime ministerial mould, this was the one opportunity they had been waiting for over three months. And far from glossing over the incident as his party colleagues were so desperately trying to do, they were convinced that this could be the making of a brand new image: a confident, relaxed, assertive Manmohan—under no one’s shadow but his own man at last. . . . A flash of temper was just what his spin doctors had been waiting for.’

  There were other positive developments in the run-up to the press conference. Dr Singh accepted Sharada Prasad’s suggestion that he should write letters to chief ministers on important issues of the day. The practice of prime ministerial letters to chief ministers was an institution created by Nehru, but other PMs had not followed it regularly. Two considerations went into the decision to reintroduce the practice. First, since many of the chief ministers belonged to either regional parties or the BJP, it would enable the PM to directly communicate with leaders of other political parties. Secondly, the move would emphasize his stature as a leader of the nation and not just of the Congress party. Finally, since all Indian-language newspapers would translate and publicize the PM’s letter to chief ministers, this would be one more avenue for communicating with people across the country.

  On 18 July 2004, the prime minister wrote his first letter to CMs on the theme of the delivery of public services. The letter got good play in the media, with many newspapers pointing out that Dr Singh had revived a practice first started by Nehru and noting that his letter was ‘non-partisan’. Building Dr Singh’s image as a ‘non-partisan’ PM had been one of my objectives. After all, Sonia, party president and UPA chairperson, was asserting her political leadership of the party and Dr Singh could not compete with her for that role. Rather, he had to assert his leadership as PM by dealing directly with chief ministers. It was a popular saying that in India’s power structure only three institutions mattered—the PM, the CM and the DM (district magistrate or collector). Many CMs consolidated their power in state capitals by dealing with DMs directly, and not through the administrative chain of command. I saw the PM’s direct communication with CMs as a similar exercise.

  Unfortunately, while Dr Singh was happy to write letters, he was not enthusiastic about the second leg of this strategy, namely having quiet one-on-one meetings, preferably informal ones over breakfast or a meal, with chief ministers. He did have private dinner meetings with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, with whom he felt comfortable, on a couple of occasions, but was not keen to repeat this with any other chief minister.

  While generally non-partisan, once in a while Dr Singh would adopt a more partisan stance, getting tough with state governments run by political opponents. On one such occasion, when Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik, then an ally of the BJP, called on him and sought a financial package for Orissa on the same lines as what was given to Bihar, a state ruled at the time by a UPA ally, Dr Singh delivered an uncharacteristic snub, saying, ‘Does money grow on trees?’ I was happy to share this with the media to show that if he so wanted, the mild-mannered PM could get rough.

  Outlook magazine’s cover story, appearing on the morning of the first national press conference, Saturday, 4 September, focused on Dr Singh’s new ‘assertive personality’, using the encounter with Advani and Fernandes as an example of Dr Singh meaning business. Outlook dubbed the PM as being ‘Stronger, Firmer, Tougher’. The story’s strapline was: ‘He doesn’t take things lying down anymore. Both the Opposition, and his partymen, better beware.’ Outlook’s Sheela Reddy wrote: ‘The days of the faceless, shy and unassuming Manmohan are over. The PM will
interact with the media and the public more. Will take a tough stand with the Opposition when it is required. Won’t tolerate ministers getting out of line.’

  But the report went on to add, ‘Given a free hand by Sonia Gandhi to iron out policy matters with allies and the Left. Will chair coordination committee meetings in Sonia’s absence. Activities will be broadened from governance to include issues like Kashmir. Sonia wants him to be a political PM, not function like a mere given administrator.’ I saw in this small concession to Sonia, and the message that the PM was being assertive with her approval, the hand of Outlook editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta. He would, I knew, not want to be on the wrong side of the Congress ‘High Command’.

  The report quoted CPI leader D. Raja as saying that he was now convinced that Manmohan was gradually emerging as a ‘real prime minister’ and that ‘History has given him a new role and he is changing to fit into that role. There is no such thing as a political lightweight or a nominated prime minister. He is the head of the government now and he is behaving like one.’ I called Raja and thanked him for that endorsement.

  The other positive development in the run-up to the prime minister’s press conference was that Sonia, while happy to make it clear that she remained the boss, as party president, did take several steps to ensure that other senior party leaders and ministers publicly accepted Dr Singh as primus inter pares. Her first visible step was to get the entire Cabinet to line up at 7 RCR and bid the PM farewell when he went abroad. This was seen as a public gesture of deference to the PM. She then encouraged her senior colleagues, or so I gathered, to be more deferential to the PM in their dealings.

  For example, in the early days of government, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh would refer to Dr Singh as Manmohan. He was gently told that equations had changed. Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh would not stand up in Cabinet meetings or at public functions when the PM arrived. After Sonia’s intervention, he began doing so, even if half-heartedly. Sonia let it be known that, in her absence, party and UPA coordination meetings would be chaired by Dr Singh. At the AICC session in August 2004, Dr Singh was projected by Sonia as the second in command. I chose to draft an overtly political speech for the PM for the AICC session. Coming just a week after his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the AICC address would reinforce his prime ministerial image. In his Independence Day speech he re-crafted the NCMP into ‘Saat Sutra’, seven priorities, and spoke of a ‘New Deal for Rural India’. His declaration that he had ‘no promises to make, but only promises to keep’ was widely appreciated.