Team Anna has won. Though there's still a long way to go and this is just half the battle won, Congratulations! It is a great victory of the ruled over the rulers.
But this article is not about the glorious revolution and its dramatic conclusion we all have witnessed.
Did you watch the live telecast from Lok Sabha on Saturday, when the Parliament unanimously agreed to Anna's terms? Were you watching Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's heroic attempt to inject political statesmanship and spirit into the LokPal debate, while basically conceding to the public's demands?
Who do you think was cutting the most sorry figure out there, sitting quietly with his arms folded, on the left hand side of the finmin? Who is the one man who is completely out of place in this entire spectacle? If you still haven't guessed it, its our honourable Prime Minister Dr. ManMohan Singh. A man whose personal record is as spotless and neat as the bright white clothes he wears. Honestly, my heart goes out to Dr. Singh...a man caught in the wrong job.
For a few moments let's forget...or try to forget...the many scams and scandals that have grabbed headlines during all these days of Dr. Singh's tenure. Lets just simply look at this highly educated, globally respected 78 year old gentleman (and gentle he definitely is) who happens to our Prime Minister...a position which no one wants to touch with a barge pole today.
A gold medallist in Economics from Panjab Univeristy,a PhD scholar from the University of Cambridge, a Professor of International Trade at St. John's College, Cambridge,a DPhil from University of Oxford, Honorary Professor at DU'S prestigious Delhi School of Economics and at JNU, Delhi, Chief (Financing for Trade Section), United Nations Secretariat, Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Ministry of Finance, GOI, Director and Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Director of IDBI, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India, Finance Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and finally...the honourable Prime Minister of India. A globally renowned Economist, "one of the world's most revered leaders" and " a man of uncommon decency and grace" (as The Independent describes him), "a virtuoso among Economists" as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen calls him.......... Tell me, is there any other Prime Minister or even any Head of State (including Presidents, Kings, Queens, Sultans, Princes, Chancellors) in the world who can match upto this man's educational qualifications or job experience?
And I have not even included Dr. Singh's 30 odd honours and awards including a "World Statesman Award", an "Outstanding Parliamentarian Award", a "Padmavibhushan", a couple of "Finance Minster of the year" awards.
Today, Dr. ManMohan Singh has been slandered in every possible way. Social networks are full of hate messages for him and people have very very serious doubts about his leadership. He has long been criticised as a puppet PM and the recent scams and scandals have bruised Dr. Singh's image very seriously in the eyes of the common man. Young IIT graduates spurned him publicly at their convocation and refused to receive their degrees from him. (Now, that was bad!). How could a group of fresh college pass outs mock a totally untainted man of his academic and scholarly calibre?
Today when things have gone wrong, when the gutsy storm of public awakening is rocking the foundations of the Government, Dr. Singh has been made the scapegoat. Public ire is focussed like a laser gun on this man and his glorious past record has been blissfully forgotten.
Rewind to 1991, when Dr. Singh was chosen to be the Finance Minister of the PV Narsimha Rao government. When he stepped in, India was in a deep deep deep fiscal deficit of around 8.5% of the GDP. The Balance of Payments was too much for us to pay back.(Balance of Payments accounts are an accounting record of all the monetary transctions between a country and the rest of the world).The nation had a foreign reserve of only..ONLY USD 1 billion!!! (for an entire country..that's peanuts). That amount was just about enough to pay for only ONE WEEK of imports. Cutting out the complicated economics of it...the country was in deep debt and facing grave financial crisis. It was Dr. ManMohan Singh who was instrumental in bringing in relief in the form of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization), ending the infamous Licence Raj (a system that inhibited the prosperity of private businesses) in India and bringing in the desperately needed IMF (International Monetary Fund) cash to bail us out of our poor economic situation. Dr. Singh, along with his associates, opened India's doors to Foreign Direct Investment and thus, brought the country's markets closer to the global playing grounds. Dr. ManMohan Singh liberalized India's economy and opened us up to the world. Even as a PM, Dr. Singh has always been pro globalization.
If you were the monitor of your class and few students were caught cheating in the exams,would it be your fault?
True, this government has probably been the most corrupt since independence, but the PM is not.Definitely not.
Perhaps Dr. ManMohan Singh should have never stepped into the murky world of politics. The soft spoken, blue-turbaned economist should have stuck to academia...or at least the RBI. Why did he get spurned by a handful of kids at the IIT convocation? Is it because between a prestigious chair and an uneasy throne, he chose the latter? And now that circumstances have changed, the air is charged with the electricity of a nation rising in revolt, the youngsters see him more as a politician than an academic and intellectual of note.Till everything was fine, he was a great economist and a fine man. And now, he is just a mute representative of a group of corrupt people.
His lifestyle is frugal and he is an embodiment of highest personal integrity. Considering this is India's Prime Minister I am talking about,just so you know, the private car Dr. Singh owns, is a Maruti 800. (Every single person I know, has a far more expensive vehicle.)
When Dr. ManMohan Singh, economist, philosopher, thinker, teacher, chose to become a politician...he deprived the academia and intelligentsia of a great scholar and a rare gem.
I feel sorry for this man...caught in the wrong job...with a crown of thorns on his head.
But this article is not about the glorious revolution and its dramatic conclusion we all have witnessed.
Did you watch the live telecast from Lok Sabha on Saturday, when the Parliament unanimously agreed to Anna's terms? Were you watching Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's heroic attempt to inject political statesmanship and spirit into the LokPal debate, while basically conceding to the public's demands?
Who do you think was cutting the most sorry figure out there, sitting quietly with his arms folded, on the left hand side of the finmin? Who is the one man who is completely out of place in this entire spectacle? If you still haven't guessed it, its our honourable Prime Minister Dr. ManMohan Singh. A man whose personal record is as spotless and neat as the bright white clothes he wears. Honestly, my heart goes out to Dr. Singh...a man caught in the wrong job.
For a few moments let's forget...or try to forget...the many scams and scandals that have grabbed headlines during all these days of Dr. Singh's tenure. Lets just simply look at this highly educated, globally respected 78 year old gentleman (and gentle he definitely is) who happens to our Prime Minister...a position which no one wants to touch with a barge pole today.
A gold medallist in Economics from Panjab Univeristy,a PhD scholar from the University of Cambridge, a Professor of International Trade at St. John's College, Cambridge,a DPhil from University of Oxford, Honorary Professor at DU'S prestigious Delhi School of Economics and at JNU, Delhi, Chief (Financing for Trade Section), United Nations Secretariat, Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Ministry of Finance, GOI, Director and Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Director of IDBI, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India, Finance Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and finally...the honourable Prime Minister of India. A globally renowned Economist, "one of the world's most revered leaders" and " a man of uncommon decency and grace" (as The Independent describes him), "a virtuoso among Economists" as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen calls him.......... Tell me, is there any other Prime Minister or even any Head of State (including Presidents, Kings, Queens, Sultans, Princes, Chancellors) in the world who can match upto this man's educational qualifications or job experience?
And I have not even included Dr. Singh's 30 odd honours and awards including a "World Statesman Award", an "Outstanding Parliamentarian Award", a "Padmavibhushan", a couple of "Finance Minster of the year" awards.
Today, Dr. ManMohan Singh has been slandered in every possible way. Social networks are full of hate messages for him and people have very very serious doubts about his leadership. He has long been criticised as a puppet PM and the recent scams and scandals have bruised Dr. Singh's image very seriously in the eyes of the common man. Young IIT graduates spurned him publicly at their convocation and refused to receive their degrees from him. (Now, that was bad!). How could a group of fresh college pass outs mock a totally untainted man of his academic and scholarly calibre?
Today when things have gone wrong, when the gutsy storm of public awakening is rocking the foundations of the Government, Dr. Singh has been made the scapegoat. Public ire is focussed like a laser gun on this man and his glorious past record has been blissfully forgotten.
Rewind to 1991, when Dr. Singh was chosen to be the Finance Minister of the PV Narsimha Rao government. When he stepped in, India was in a deep deep deep fiscal deficit of around 8.5% of the GDP. The Balance of Payments was too much for us to pay back.(Balance of Payments accounts are an accounting record of all the monetary transctions between a country and the rest of the world).The nation had a foreign reserve of only..ONLY USD 1 billion!!! (for an entire country..that's peanuts). That amount was just about enough to pay for only ONE WEEK of imports. Cutting out the complicated economics of it...the country was in deep debt and facing grave financial crisis. It was Dr. ManMohan Singh who was instrumental in bringing in relief in the form of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization), ending the infamous Licence Raj (a system that inhibited the prosperity of private businesses) in India and bringing in the desperately needed IMF (International Monetary Fund) cash to bail us out of our poor economic situation. Dr. Singh, along with his associates, opened India's doors to Foreign Direct Investment and thus, brought the country's markets closer to the global playing grounds. Dr. ManMohan Singh liberalized India's economy and opened us up to the world. Even as a PM, Dr. Singh has always been pro globalization.
If you were the monitor of your class and few students were caught cheating in the exams,would it be your fault?
True, this government has probably been the most corrupt since independence, but the PM is not.Definitely not.
Perhaps Dr. ManMohan Singh should have never stepped into the murky world of politics. The soft spoken, blue-turbaned economist should have stuck to academia...or at least the RBI. Why did he get spurned by a handful of kids at the IIT convocation? Is it because between a prestigious chair and an uneasy throne, he chose the latter? And now that circumstances have changed, the air is charged with the electricity of a nation rising in revolt, the youngsters see him more as a politician than an academic and intellectual of note.Till everything was fine, he was a great economist and a fine man. And now, he is just a mute representative of a group of corrupt people.
His lifestyle is frugal and he is an embodiment of highest personal integrity. Considering this is India's Prime Minister I am talking about,just so you know, the private car Dr. Singh owns, is a Maruti 800. (Every single person I know, has a far more expensive vehicle.)
When Dr. ManMohan Singh, economist, philosopher, thinker, teacher, chose to become a politician...he deprived the academia and intelligentsia of a great scholar and a rare gem.
I feel sorry for this man...caught in the wrong job...with a crown of thorns on his head.
