The latest despatch of New Delhi-based correpondent of the Washington Post Simon Denyer, calling Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a "failure", has severely shaken chamchas and apologists of the PM in the Congress party and the government. The PM's Office claimed that the Post had already apologised for its report; this has been promptly denied by the US daily and its New Delhi representative. An angry Information & Broadcasting Minister Mrs Ambika Soni asserted that the Indian Embassy would take up the matter with the Washington Post for an apology.
An apology for what? Whatever Denyer has reported is not original or something new, unheard or unwritten earlier. He was only doing his professional job by reflecting the despondent, disenchanted mood of the Indian people, the intelligentia and the media, over the pathetic silence, indecision and inaction by the head of govt. to stem the rot of rampant corruption. These facts were available to Delhi-based foreign reporters virtually on a platter. Denyer has quoted the PM's Indian critics, including Indian historian Ramchandra Guha and Sanjay Baru, a one-time Press Advisor to Dr Manmohan Singh and now back in journalism.
Prime Minister Singh's "fall from grace" was not dramatic.Truthfully speaking, he was essentially a "yes Minister" bureaucrat where he started. His role as an "architect" of 1991 economic reforms ending the socialistic strangle-hold of "licence and permit raj" was thrust on him by the terrible economic plight of the country at that time. In fact, these reforms were virtually dictated by the IMF-World Bank as a precondition for massive financial assistance to the bankrupt Indian govt headed by PV Narsimha Rao. If, indeed, Dr Singh, an economist, was the real father of these much-needed reforms to galvanise the moribund Indian economy and liberate the Indian people and entrepreneurs from the socialistic shackles imposed by the ruling Congress, why did he not pursue them with any vigour, in the susbequent years when he himself became the Prime Minister, courtesy Mrs Sonia Gandhi, his supreme leader? The Denyer despatch has also hinted at this fact.
All in all, the Washington Post has reported on the stark failure of Prime Minister Singh is what an average Indian newspaper reader like myself has been reading every day for so many months. This government has been hurtling from one scandal after another-one crisis after another-for long. And what was Dr Manmohan Singh's therapy: Silence, indecision, inaction which amounted to quiet acceptance of the loot of the public excheqeur. What an enormous shame for some one reputed to be morally upright and honest! Is it not a right time for him to say good bye and go home at the ripe old age?
An apology for what? Whatever Denyer has reported is not original or something new, unheard or unwritten earlier. He was only doing his professional job by reflecting the despondent, disenchanted mood of the Indian people, the intelligentia and the media, over the pathetic silence, indecision and inaction by the head of govt. to stem the rot of rampant corruption. These facts were available to Delhi-based foreign reporters virtually on a platter. Denyer has quoted the PM's Indian critics, including Indian historian Ramchandra Guha and Sanjay Baru, a one-time Press Advisor to Dr Manmohan Singh and now back in journalism.
Prime Minister Singh's "fall from grace" was not dramatic.Truthfully speaking, he was essentially a "yes Minister" bureaucrat where he started. His role as an "architect" of 1991 economic reforms ending the socialistic strangle-hold of "licence and permit raj" was thrust on him by the terrible economic plight of the country at that time. In fact, these reforms were virtually dictated by the IMF-World Bank as a precondition for massive financial assistance to the bankrupt Indian govt headed by PV Narsimha Rao. If, indeed, Dr Singh, an economist, was the real father of these much-needed reforms to galvanise the moribund Indian economy and liberate the Indian people and entrepreneurs from the socialistic shackles imposed by the ruling Congress, why did he not pursue them with any vigour, in the susbequent years when he himself became the Prime Minister, courtesy Mrs Sonia Gandhi, his supreme leader? The Denyer despatch has also hinted at this fact.
All in all, the Washington Post has reported on the stark failure of Prime Minister Singh is what an average Indian newspaper reader like myself has been reading every day for so many months. This government has been hurtling from one scandal after another-one crisis after another-for long. And what was Dr Manmohan Singh's therapy: Silence, indecision, inaction which amounted to quiet acceptance of the loot of the public excheqeur. What an enormous shame for some one reputed to be morally upright and honest! Is it not a right time for him to say good bye and go home at the ripe old age?
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