Gandhi ‘outstanding' for PM – really?

The announcement by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he would not serve another term was hardly unexpected – the man is, after all, 81 years old and has been in the job for a decade. The fact that he has anointed Rahul Gandhi as his successor in the coming elections is not a surprise either, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty having dominated the ruling Congress Party since independence, providing three of the nation’s Prime Ministers.

Singh described the 43-year-old Gandhi as having “outstanding credentials” to be the next Prime Minister of India, although it is hard to see what these credentials are apart from being the son, grandson and great-grandson of former leaders.

Gandhi is a back-bench MP in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) of the Indian Parliament. He has never held Ministerial office, and indeed declined the offer of one under Singh. Moreover he has been a lacklustre and unenthusiastic performer on the campaign trail. In recent State elections his presence did nothing to stop a rout by the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

 He is a vice president of Congress, a post he has occupied for less than a year (his mother, Sonia, is the president) and is on record as saying he would prefer to work behind the scenes reforming party structures.

Singh also launched an attack on Opposition Leader and Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi saying he would be a disastrous Prime Minister. “Anyone who has presided over the massacre of citizens on the streets of Ahmedabad should not be made prime minister,” Singh said in a reference to the Gujarat Hindu-Muslim riots of 2002 in which more than 1000 died.

BJP leaders have been quick to point out that the riots occurred very early in Modi’s first term and in the intervening years Gujarat State has become a model of economic development. Modi himself has always claimed he did everything in his power to halt the bloodshed.  

Singh, who served as Finance Minister in the Government of P. V. Narasimha Rao during the 1990s, is rightly credited with liberalising the country’s economy after decades of doctrinaire socialist stagnation.  The early years of his leadership saw these reforms continued, to applause both at home and overseas, but in recent times his administration has been mired in a succession of corruption scandals, which he has seemed powerless to control.

Manmohan Singh deserves to be remembered as one of India’s better Prime Ministers. GDP has grown at an annual rate of 7.6 per cent over the last decade and the national income is close to $2 trillion, but his subservience to the Gandhi dynasty and his promotion of yet another Gandhi to lead his country may well prove to be at odds with the tides of history.