Man for all seasons -- Manmohan Singh (1)

Celebrating the achievements of PM (Dr.) Manmohan Singh

In early 2004, India heaved a collective sigh of relief. The people had spoken, and had shown the communal BJP-led NDA alliance the door.

Gone was the weak kneed Vajpayee (of the infamous Kargil debacle, and the famous Kandhar and bus trip successes), to be replaced by the strong and dynamic Manmohan Singh -- the man who unleashed liberalisation in india in 1991 (no, PV Narasimha Rao had nothing to do with it).

With India back in the hands of a man of integrity, vision and a clear roadmap for development (much like Nehru was), rapid development, elimination of all ills, culminating in superpower status are obvious outcomes. With India on her way to becoming a superpower by ... err sometime in the future (but don't worry, it will all happen very soon), many of her recent achievements have been ignored. This series of small essays is my attempt at filling that void.

Does Manmohan Singh deserve all the credit?

Success, as they say, has many fathers. Failure is an orphan.

So it is with Dr. Singh's successes.

Many have sprung from the woodwork to claim credit for our PM’s success. Some say… “aah it was the communists that forced ... err encouraged... him to do that”, or “Sonia madame must have said so” or “this is the peril of a coalition”.

This is blatantly unfair, for at least two reasons:

First: Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minster of India. This isn’t some badly run business we’re talking about: this is the Government of India, a well run ship with a clear strategy. Further, these are not petty gains but dramatic victories. In a well run organisation, none of these can happen without strong leadership.

Second: It is unfair to blame leaders for failures but look elsewhere to celebrate success. If Bush gets the blame for having trigger happy deputies (e.g. Rumsfeld?), Manmohan Singh must get credit for the achievements of his team.

This set of essays begins with foreign policy, where arguably, the successes have been most spectacular (though his achievements in the field of minority development, educational excellence may be considered equally dramatic).

First fix your neighbours: Successes in Foreign Policy

No single area captures the statesmanship of Our Prime Minister like his achievements in the field of Foreign Affairs. In particular, his handling of Pakistan, the United States of America and of China are worthy of celebration.

Highly successful sale of Indian security interests to Pakistan

Since being appointed PM (he was never elected, but what do people know about leadership?) Dr. Singh has superlatively handled our nasty neighbor, Pakistan. In his own inimitable style he has successfully cowed them into submission with the clever use of Independent India’s oldest weapons – unilateral concessions and kid gloves. The result of this has been spectacular: Pakistan’s largest domestic produce – international terrorism – is now flourishing and is being exported all over the world.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. So we will start from the beginning.

As a first gesture, on coming to power, Dr. Singh immediately scuttled POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act). POTA was a draconian legislation that had allegedly offended the human rights of several terrorists. Some say this was at the behest of the Leftists, Madame Sonia, others; but the rightful credit must go to the man in charge.

Dr. Singh then established a most innovative solution for reducing terror: forming a joint terrorism reduction network with Pakistan. Under this arrangement, India (the 'customer' of terrorism) will share evidence of terror activities with Pakistan (her supplier) . This knowledge sharing mechanisms will allow Pakistan to study evidence from successful and unsuccessful terrorist attacks, enabling key producers like the Pakistan army, the ISI and NGTO's (Non-Government Terrorist Organisations) to get a clear picture of why some attacks worked and others failed.

They will see for example, how foolish terrorists left behind evidence trails that allowed Indian police to trace them back to Pakistan. This information can then be used to refine the next wave of terror attacks, to wipe out innocent Indians more efficiently. This move will dramatically accelerate the development of Pakistan’s terrorism infrastructure; early results have been encouraging (vide infra).

Manmohan has ensured that these efforts for efficiency are not hampered by Indian red tape and bottlenecks that habitually obstruct economic activity. Several jobs are actively being created in India’s burgeoning activist industry to pressurise war-mongers like the Supreme Court, the President and the Police to cease and desist. The masterful clearance of Afzal Guru is iconic of this new thrust for efficiency. So, the more Afzal Gurus Pakistan can produce, the more India will allow them to prosper!

With this masterstroke, painted across a global canvas (India, Havana, elsewhere), Manmohan has bested Chamberlain in negotiating “peace in our lifetimes”, against a remarkably hostile enemy.

Given the time constraints, Dr. Singh had to move quickly, ignoring Parliament in the process. Which is fine: after all, decisive leadership never works on consensus!

See the following references for more details:

“Annual reports” on the robust growth of terrorism:

An encouraging 2004:

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=32957

A better 2005:

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=52485

A spectacular 2006:

http://www.expressindia.com/messages.php?newsid=75101

Pakistan can no longer conceal her glee and for the first time admits that this is a key business!

Man of action:

PM ignores prejudiced Police briefings (what do our Cops know? They’re lazy, corrupt and communal)

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=74764&headline=7/11~Probe:~

Instead of indulging in this nonsense, the Mumbai police should think creatively and establish a joint “crime reduction commission”. Imagine how powerful that would be: the men in khaki and the sundry dons of Mumbai sitting across the table defeating crime! Alas our cops know nothing, and are lazy, corrupt and communal.

Making it happen in Havana: Manmohan’s masterstroke -- declaring Pakistan a victim of terrorism! The Poor things!

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060925&fname=parthasarathy&sid=1

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/sep/18raman1.htm?q=np&file=.htm

Coming next: Towards a nuclear and bright India

If the masterly handling of Pakistan has demonstrated our Prime Minister’s intellect, the winning of the nuclear deal with America will demonstrate his thirst for success.

I will post this article over the next few days.