Father, son and the UP ghost

Rahul Gandhi will have to find a way to put people back in charge of their lives and not be left to the mercies of the huge army of bureaucrats

Mohan Guruswamy New Delhi

The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has prophesised that Rahul Gandhi is the future of Uttar Pradesh. But it seems much more likely that Mayawati is UP's immediate future and fate. Which means that India's largest state and among its most backward ones at that, will remain condemned for a few more years to kleptocratic rule and to the narcissist excesses of personality cult. It would also mean that India's chances of catching up with China in the next few decades would have been delivered a stunning blow. UP is almost 15 per cent of India and dominates its polity and India cannot go forward leaving UP behind. 

But UP's politicians seem determined to put narrow and immediate interests ahead of greater national goals. Having said this, it must also be said that our national leadership in general and our Prime Minister more specifically, have also failed in articulating national goals. It is even more unfortunate that Manmohan Singh's abilities of articulation seem reserved for scoring cheap shots at the opposition and not for enlisting them in the great task of taking India ahead. It's now too late for the Prime Minister. His time is fast closing whichever way one looks at it. 

He is over 75. Many of the Congress's allies, particularly the Left, would not care to go to the people in 2009 to defend his legacy. They would instead like to take the credit for dumping him and his policies. I would be willing to bet my last rupee that the Left will abandon the UPA well before the next Lok Sabha elections are due, in a bid to keep the cake and eat it too. Even more certain is that once out of office the Congress party will turn on him like it did on Narasimha Rao. Dr Manmohan Singh will do well to study Dr Abraham Masslow's celebrated study on primate behavior: on how baboons deal with their fallen leaders. 

It is not without some irony that Singh has of late begun to see much merit in the late Narasimha Rao. It may also be because Singh knows something that most people don't:  The economic reforms of 1991 were actually authored by the late PV Narasimha Rao and the author of the South-South Commission Report, Manmohan Singh, then, still had views that India's Left comrades would have appreciated more. The Government Order that led to the scrapping of the Industrial Licensing Policy and the disbanding of the infamous Directorate General of Technical Development (DGTD) emanated from 7, Race Course Road and not from North Block. 

The then Prime Minister had to work hard to get his team aboard. In fact, only P Chidambaram, then commerce minister, did not need any persuasion. The then finance minister, who was the Prime Minister's second choice for the job, required a bit of cajoling to come aboard. The Prime Minister had to tell him that he was going ahead with the reforms and the finance minister will then have to decide whether to stay on or not. But once adulation was forthcoming, Singh displayed great alacrity to take credit. As John Kennedy said, success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. This, too, Singh will learn soon. 

The UP campaign did not throw up any issues. The only thing that stirred the talking heads was Rahul Gandhi's comment about the services to India rendered by his father, grandmother and great-grandfather. But was this such a big matter for the entire spectrum from Kuldip Nayyar to LK Advani to take umbrage?

Who can deny Nehru a leading role in the freedom movement and in forging the new nationhood? Who but the most churlish would deny Indira Gandhi credit for taking India to victory in 1971? And to say that had Rajiv Gandhi been prime minister the demolition of the Babri Masjid would not have happened, is fair.