Puppet for a Prime Ministe?

THE PRIME MINISTER OR PRADHAN MUNSHI?

Objective:

The burden of this note is that the PM is not a weak man. And that the weaknesses are in the situation in which he became PM and in which he is called upon to head the Government. Calling him a ‘puppet’ casts aspersions on him personally. Someone of his track record in the world of Political Economy, both international and national, does not have a ‘puppet’ mental frame of mind.

How he became PM?

The whole world knows the circumstances in which Dr. Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister of India.

In the General Election of 2005, Sonia Gandhi as President of the Indian National Congress won a mandate to form the Government and did so with the help of Left n some other regional parties. However, for her own reasons, some very obvious, n some not so, she opted out of the office of the Prime Minister and anointed Dr. Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister. She did not pay heed to many emotional appeals to reconsider her decision. Instead she chose to be chairperson of the UPA. No one can deny the fact that PM took the office as a proxy for the Congress President, who remains very much on the scene with some serious responsibilities of her own.

The structure of GOI:

Thus from 2005 onwards we have a government with some obvious division of labour. Mrs. Gandhi takes care of the politics of governance and Dr. Manmohan Singh takes care of the business of Government: something similar to the CEO n COO in corporate parlance. In such a set up, it is quite obvious who holds the upper hand. The CEO of course! So is the COO a puppet in the hands of the CEO? There are obvious pros/cons in this Organization structure and therefore many corporations combine the jobs of Chairman n Managing Director. That makes for ‘strength.

Coalition Politics

Both Mrs. Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh head a multi party government. Quite obviously apart from sharing spoils of office, some of these parties have their own Agenda independent of the Congress. The nominees of these parties who are Ministers in this Government are more ‘responsive’ to their respective leaders. They are much less responsive to the Prime Minister or the Chairperson of the UPA. Therefore some of the incumbents won ministerial seats despite strong opposition from the PM (and from the Congress).

Constitutional Framework:

It is worth bringing into the picture the Constitutional nature of our Government. First the negative. Our’s is not a Presidential form of Government where the President is supreme and the Ministers really serve at his pleasure.

We follow the cabinet form of Government, in which the Prime Minister is First Among Equals. There is also the (much neglected) concept of ‘Joint responsibility’ in as much as all decisions (at least Policy Decisions) of the Government are decisions of the Cabinet. Individual cabinet members may air their views in the Cabinet. But the decision that comes out is a Join Decision of the Cabinet. The FM took shelter under this when he ‘declined’ to give his personal views on the Caste base census. The PM is also accused of ducking the question taking shelter under the “Cabinet Decision” format.

However, in practice, many of the Ministers have been announcing epoch making decisions in their personal capacity. It is a great pity of the situation that this Concept has not been assiduously used to ensure a united face of the coalition government. This concept should have been made an important bedrock of Coalition Dharma i.e. the ministers shall look to the Cabinet and the PM to bless their decisions or to the modify them and not take shelter under their regional party leaders. That is a missed opportunity.

What prompts the Puppet epithet?

It goes without saying that there must be a great deal of consultation between the PM and the Congress President in Policy formulation. Yet there have been occasions when the Congress President has “written’ to the PM in effect giving some direction. Such ‘written’ directions were meant as much to give a direction to the Government as to enable Congress to take political ownership of some decisions in the political one- up game. But this gives the impression that the PM is a Puppet n the strings are in the hands of the Congress president. On other occasions, the PM has had to ‘give in’ to predilections of the leaders of the Coalition partners e.g. Privatization of some PSUs in Tamil Nadu. In such cases, the strings seem to be in the hands of the Regional Leaders.

Personality of the PM

It is for all to see that the PM is not an egoist, keen to project himself at every occasion. He is soft spoken, but learned n thinking man. Neither was he a Puppet Governor of RBI nor was he a puppet Finance Minister who set India on the road to solvency once again. A puppet could hardly have shown the world leaders the way out of this current economic melt-down.

Some people are born politicians; some others have politics thrust on them. He became a politician via his skills in managing vast financial and economic institutions. Being a man of principles, n honest to a fault, he was valued by Congress leadership. It needs strength of character to remain honest in the midst of so much power n temptation. In the UPA I, he got to a stage when he said to the left “so be it” and carried the Congress leadership with him to clinch the Nuclear deal with the USA.

As the saying goes, circumstances maketh the man. The circumstances made him the PM, and the circumstances themselves leave him limited room to exert the authority of his office and of his personal strengths.