Free from ‘Slavery’

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, no doubt, has emerged stronger, more resolute, firmly in place for what he set out to achieve in 2005 — freeing India from nuclear isolation and making it a responsible member of the international nuclear fraternity. That he has won the trust vote is significant for him; otherwise, as we said yesterday, the result of the trust vote would be inconsequential given the rowdyism of MPs in the Lok Sabha which led to the adjournment of the House several times and as reflected by the sheer frustration of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee in not being able to discipline the unruly MPs. So what makes — and we must analyse it in all fairness — Dr Singh’s triumph significant? One, he could prove his point despite the uncertainty of the day — that he was determined to go ahead with the nuclear agenda which the BJP too would otherwise support if it were not for the credit that Dr Singh alone would get for forging closer strategic ties with the US, something which the BJP too seeks and which LK Advani was categorical about while giving his speech on Monday. Two, Dr Singh could respond to Mr Advani’s charge of him being ‘‘the weakest PM, a nikamma PM’’ like a leader who had suddenly acquired the skill of retorting assertively without being bothered about the result of the trust motion; after all, in his speech that he could not deliver due to the highly repugnant pandemonium that had been prevailing in the House even before he rose to speak, Dr Singh made it clear that ‘‘the greatness of democracy is that we are all birds of passage’’ and that ‘‘we are here today, gone tomorrow’’. The Prime Minister, in his new-found confidence, took on Mr Advani thus: ‘‘At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.’’ One may argue that it has nothing to do with the nuclear deal or the essence of the debate on the trust vote, but the fact remains that here is a new Manmohan Singh who has learnt the art of replying to criticisms that too have nothing to do with the crux of the debate that took place in the Lok Sabha on Monday and Tuesday. And three, and mostly significantly, Dr Singh’s victory is an addition to his honesty when he confessed to the Left having wanted him ‘‘to behave as their bonded slave’’; in fact, it is the strongest indictment of the Left from anyone in the Congress so far, which makes a new man of Manmohan Singh — bold enough, not just honest, to bare the reality. Clearly, the Left is the biggest loser, and it is Dr Singh who has made that possible. Credit must go to the Prime Minister, and him alone, because his party was actually averse to divorce with the Left on a single agenda and not at all prepared to risk an early election, while Dr Singh had had his own agenda ‘‘with a clear conscience and the best interests of my country and our people at heart’’ — going by the text of the speech which he had to cut short on Tuesday evening.Now that the Prime Minister is free from ‘‘bonded slavery’’ — CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and his band of blackmailers used to calling the shots in the government without being part of the government — Dr Singh should embark upon the course of reforms in sectors like banking, insurance and pension, without of course selling the country to multinationals. There are marvellous ways in which reforms can be carried out without making the country subservient to any outside vested interests. It is possible that the benefits of reforms reach the man in the street directly. A word of caution too: it is only a matter of few months before general elections are held, by when the electorate will have forgotten the Manmohan Singh of July 22, 2008, hit by price rise and a host of other parasites. source: sentinel assam