Commentary / Mani Shankar Aiyar

The Magic of Being Manmohan

Ahistorian evaluating the implications of the 21 ministers of the Rao government at present under investigation would not be able to stop his evaluation at that point. He would also have to evaluate the implication of the most important economic minister of the same Rao government having been Manmohan Singh.

Had Manmohan been replaced by a more pliant politician, one whose value system was more in accord with the 'politics is politics' school of morality, the pickings of the minor economic ministries would have been small beer compared to what one signature in North Block can secure. That path was stoutly resisted by the prime minister all through the tortuous turnings of five long years in a vocation of which it is truly said, 'A week is a long time in politics!' How and why did this happen?

The need to have, in a crisis, a finance minister of high technical virtuosity was, of course, one reason. But once the worst of the crisis was over, if Manmohan's only virtue had been technical virtuosity, he would have been quickly and honourably eased out. He was not because by then he had become an invaluable political asset. It was also the kind of charge which a more prudent practising politicians might have chosen to ignore. Manmohan, instead, took the charge front on, explaining how his daughter had applied for the scholarship when he was not even in India and had got the scholarship entirely on merit on the basis of an outstanding academic record. The very Opposition member who had made the allegation called out his blessings on the bright young girl - and the canard was killed on the spot. Once again, it was the magic of Manmohan's transparency inspiring unchallengeable confidence.

It was around the same time that Prabhu Chawla, in the Indian Express, came out with a wild allegation of Manmohan having leaked state secrets to the IMF and the IMF having dictated to him the Budget he should present to Parliament. It was vintage Ram Nath Goenka-style muckraking. An attempt was made in Parliament to make an issue of it; it fizzled out when a half-hearted Opposition discovered the charges held no credibility in the public eye.

The great unwashed masses had spotted in Manmohan a person of probity - and the same confidence-inspiring that had moved the Bank of England moved also in the backlanes of humble India its mysteries to perform. Manmohan went on to present the most celebrated Budget in the history of independent India - the Budget of 1992.