India's PM - zero to hero to Nero : Moneycontrol

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What is one to make of Manmohan Singh? Is he a clean politician forced by circumstance to travel with a boatload of crooks? A radical economic reformer trapped in the wrong party at the wrong time? Or is he just plain incompetent and irresponsible?

Consider his recent statements and actions (or rather, in-actions). He dismissed A Raja’s 2G skullduggery as being the result of coalition politics. Apparently, coalition compulsions are justification enough to allow anybody to loot the exchequer. (I don’t recall VP Singh, Deve Gowda, IK Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee complaining about these same compulsions.)

Singh’s decision to appoint PJ Thomas as CVC was again supreme folly. His own office did not tell him about the charge-sheeting of Thomas, and when BJP leader Sushma Swaraj objected to his appointment, the PM just ignored it. Even while claiming "responsibility" for the goof-up, he obliquely blamed minister of state Prithviraj Chavan, who headed the department of personnel and training then, for the mess.

His latest statement on the WikiLeaks expose – which suggested that the Congress had paid bribes to win the 2008 trust vote – is another exercise in the evasion of moral responsibility. “I have no knowledge of any such purchases and, I am absolutely categorical I have not authorised anyone to purchase any votes. I am not aware of any acts of purchase of votes," he said at the recent India Today Conclave.

Is it enough for a PM to claim ignorance of a crime when the purpose of the crime was to keep him (and Sonia) in power? Can he be fiddling while Rome burns?

From all accounts, Singh does not appear to be willing to take responsibility for anything bad that happens during his watch. We saw this as early as 1992, when Harshad Mehta was running riot in the markets by looting the banks. Singh said he would not lose sleep over what happened in the markets.

Clearly, there is a pattern to the PM’s evasion of responsibility. His reasoning is this: I am honest, and I cannot be accountable for anyone else’s dishonesty.

This is fine if you do not hold any official post in government. But Dr Singh, you are the PM. You are the head of the government, and governance starts from your office. You cannot escape responsibility saying "I was not aware." It is the job of the PM to be aware, and set things right.

What lies behind Singh’s strange stubbornness in seeking the label of personal honesty without taking responsibility for spreading it around a bit? The answer probably lies in the fact that he has reached his level of incompetence. He was meant to be a bureaucrat – whose job is to push files and offer suggestions, but not to take any responsibility for the outcome.

In 1991-92, chance catapulted him to the role of finance minister in Narasimha Rao’s cabinet. He became finance minister while actually playing the role of finance secretary. Rao managed the politics, Singh offered bureaucratic solutions. It suited Rao to have a yes-man as FM – someone who will do the job when asked to and lay off when political compulsions intervened. The world, unfortunately, gave Singh – and not Rao - the credit for the reforms. He became everyone’s hero.

Then, in 2004, when Sonia saw that she herself would not be able to head a coalition, she latched on to Manmohan. He was exactly what she needed: someone with no political base, someone who would keep the seat warm for her son Rahul to take over. Singh’s only job was to stay loyal and allow the Dynasty to claim credit for any good done by the UPA.

The script went fine as long as nothing went wrong. When they did, Sonia’s compulsions didn’t square with Singh’s personal ego. He was willing to play ball - including allowing Raja to help himself to crores – till his inaction started sullying his own image. He wanted public approbation as an honest man without having to fight the crooks.

Quite clearly, this is the Peter Principle at work. Singh has been promoted to his level of incompetence. A bureaucrat has been made FM and then PM, and he cannot take the heat.

The Peter Principle says that every person rises to his level of incompetence. The logic: if you are good at your job, you get promoted. But once you get promoted, the competencies required are different. Singh was a competent bureaucrat, He was not as competent a finance minister, but the fiscal crisis of 1991-92 called for technocratic solutions, not the political competence of a finance minister.

In 2004, he got another kick upstairs – this time as PM. He has now risen to his level of absolute incompetence. Manmohan Singh has risen from zero to hero to Nero. God help us.