Of Prime Ministers , Raincoats And Wind - Cheaters !

 

BY R.K. MISRA

Swords cut and kill but words stab and stay. And there will be many who will be accountable for much, to the late Indian Prime Minister on this score.

For now Dr. Manmohan Singh who softly tip-toed into history and was gently laid to rest three days short of 2025 is a persona drenched in sterling tributes. Distant lands shrunk in size to bathe India’s first Sikh Prime Minister in homage and compliments. India also pulled out all stops as stalwarts from all walks of life doffed their hats in acknowledgement of the debt of gratitude that liberalization set in motion. But this does not distract from the hurtful darts hurled by his opposition detractors. Feted in death, he was the object of distasteful barbs by political pygmies in his lifetime. These will linger for a long time to come for the sheer uncivility of the assault on a distinguished, globally recognized economist whom fortuitous circumstances had pitchforked in the role of a saviour.

The government of the day declared a seven-day state mourning and a state funeral with full military honours .

 Even in neighbouring Pakistan, the entire village of Gah, located about a 100 kms from Islamabad, is in mourning. This is the former Indian Prime Minister’s native village where he studied up to class four. It falls in Chakwal district of Pakistan’s Punjab. His father, Gurmukh Singh was a cloth trader and India’s 13th Prime Minister was lovingly called ‘Mohna’ during his school days in his ancestral village. Though Singh never went back ever since his family left the place, the village hogged the limelight when he became the Prime Minister. Thereafter Gah was developed as a model village by the Pakistan government. The village held a formal condolence meeting after learning of Singh’s passing away.

One shudders to think of the plight of the village folk if the roles were reversed and an Indian ancestral village of a former Pakistani Prime Minister were to hold a similar condolence meeting in these times. All manner of vigilantes would be out to protect ‘national honour’. Incidentally, the grandfather of the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a hindu named Premjibhai Meghjibhai Thakkar. The family hailed from Moti Paneli village in Upleta taluka of Rajkot district in Gujarat. Last heard, their house still stands in the village though the ownership has changed. Imagine the mayhem if some sort of reciprocal recognition were to be afforded to the structure for its historical value, more so in a country where even the father of the nation is being targeted now. Published reports (dtd December 26,2024) testify that chaos erupted at a BJP event in Patna when a folk singer sang Mahatma Gandhi’s version of “Raghupati Raghav”. Ironically, the occasion was former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birth anniversary, a man known for his liberal world view for whom “Sarv dharma sambhav” was not an empty slogan but a strong belief .

Words hurt more than weapons. A sea of accolade and acclaim is swirling around Singh after he passed away. But there was lots hurtful that was said about the genteel former Prime Minister by political opponents who could not scratch his toenails in knowledge depth or standing. That those holding constitutional office chose to clamber onto this bandwagon unmindful of the fact that such words affected the very dignity of their office , is the sad part of present day Indian politics. 

The BJP which was in the Opposition when Singh helmed India, left little to imagination in vilifying him after assuming the reigns of power. In fact, while still the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi referred to him as ‘Maunmohan’ Singh, the silent one, so to say.  Modi’s silence on Manipur where hundreds have lost their lives remains infinitely more deafening. In December 2017, in an innuendo-laden speech during the Gujarat elections, Prime Minister Modi had virtually charged former PM Singh, with sedition. He had implied that Singh, a former vice-president of the country had held a top-secret meeting with the Pakistani High Commissioner and others to make Ahmed Patel, the chief minister of Gujarat. In hindsight, it was a ruse by a constitutional authority to win a state election which stood delicately poised. This implication emerged from the then union finance minister Arun Jaitley statement in Parliament that the prime minister’s statements "did not question, nor meant to question the commitment to this nation of either former PM Manmohan Singh or Former VP Hamid Ansari. Any such perception is erroneous." For all the heave ho, BJP came back to power in 2017 with a mere margin of eight bagging 99 seats with the Congress winning 77 seats in a 182 member House with 6 seats going to others).

Prime Minister Modi’s lavish praise for his predecessor on his passing away was in sharp contrast to the trenchant criticism in 2017 when he credited him with the “art of bathing in the bathroom wearing a raincoat”. History is a remorseless judge but those who single out Singh for his ability to shower in a raincoat, must wait their turn at facing the furnace in a wind-cheater ! 

 This syndicated news column was published in the respective newspapers edition dated  December 31,2024 respectively, whose links are given below:-

https://odishapostepaper.com/edition/5171/orissapost/page/8

https://epaper.lokmat.com/articlepage.php?articleid=LOKTIME_NPLT_20241231_6_2