The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh (21 page)

Outlook
magazine’s cover story, appearing on the morning of the first national press conference, Saturday, 4 September, focused on Dr Singh’s new ‘assertive personality’, using the encounter with Advani and Fernandes as an example of Dr Singh meaning business.
Outlook
dubbed the PM as being ‘Stronger, Firmer, Tougher’. The story’s strapline was: ‘He doesn’t take things lying down anymore. Both the Opposition, and his partymen, better beware.’
Outlook’s
Sheela Reddy wrote: ‘The days of the faceless, shy and unassuming Manmohan are over. The PM will interact with the media and the public more. Will take a tough stand with the Opposition when it is required. Won’t tolerate ministers getting out of line.’

But the report went on to add, ‘Given a free hand by Sonia Gandhi to iron out policy matters with allies and the Left. Will chair coordination committee meetings in Sonia’s absence. Activities will be broadened from governance to include issues like Kashmir. Sonia wants him to be a political PM, not function like a mere given administrator.’ I saw in this small concession to Sonia, and the message that the PM was being assertive with her approval, the hand of
Outlook
editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta. He would, I knew, not want to be on the wrong side of the Congress ‘High Command’.

The report quoted CPI leader D. Raja as saying that he was now convinced that Manmohan was gradually emerging as a ‘real prime minister’ and that ‘History has given him a new role and he is changing to fit into that role. There is no such thing as a political lightweight or a nominated prime minister. He is the head of the government now and he is behaving like one.’ I called Raja and thanked him for that endorsement.

The other positive development in the run-up to the prime minister’s press conference was that Sonia, while happy to make it clear that she remained the boss, as party president, did take several steps to ensure that other senior party leaders and ministers publicly accepted Dr Singh as
primus
inter
pares.
Her first visible step was to get the entire Cabinet to line up at 7 RCR and bid the PM farewell when he went abroad. This was seen as a public gesture of deference to the PM. She then encouraged her senior colleagues, or so I gathered, to be more deferential to the PM in their dealings.

For example, in the early days of government, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh would refer to Dr Singh as Manmohan. He was gently told that equations had changed. Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh would not stand up in Cabinet meetings or at public functions when the PM arrived. After Sonia’s intervention, he began doing so, even if half-heartedly. Sonia let it be known that, in her absence, party and UPA coordination meetings would be chaired by Dr Singh. At the AICC session in August 2004, Dr Singh was projected by Sonia as the second in command. I chose to draft an overtly political speech for the PM for the AICC session. Coming just a week after his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the AICC address would reinforce his prime ministerial image. In his Independence Day speech he re-crafted the NCMP into ‘Saat Sutra’, seven priorities, and spoke of a ‘New Deal for Rural India’. His declaration that he had ‘no promises to make, but only promises to keep’ was widely appreciated.

 

 

Considerable work went into preparing Dr Singh for his media interaction in September 2004. Several ministers and senior officials and editors were consulted for advice both on likely questions and possible answers. I personally spoke to several ministers and editors. Mani, Nair and Narayanan worked with PMO officials to put together their own set of likely questions and suggested answers. A final list of seventy-five likely questions and answers was prepared and these were discussed with Dr Singh over several sessions in the preceding week. These sessions proved most instructive because Dr Singh revealed his mind on many issues, rehearsing his replies to potential questions. The internal debate among his key aides on what each thought he should say was the first structured conversation on policy in the PMO.

While my approach was to read out a set of likely questions to him and let him identify the questions for which he needed written draft replies from the PMO, my colleague Sujata Mehta, the joint secretary from the foreign service, prepared elaborate answers for every likely question on foreign policy. The foreign service had got used to tutoring the PM on what he should or should not say to the media. Dr Singh was not someone who needed tutoring, especially on foreign policy. He knew well what to say on key issues and had a mind of his own. But he would never snub an official engaged in tutoring him. He would hear her patiently and say precisely what he wanted to. Every once in a while, though, he would respond to advice from officials on what they thought he ‘should say’, to the media or to a visiting dignitary, by snapping, ‘Tell me what I should know, not what I should say!’

It was decided that the press conference would be in the large hall of Vigyan Bhavan, the premier sarkari conference hall, and would be open to all accredited journalists, Indian and foreign. In order to make the event more inclusive, those not accredited could secure an invitation card. Over 500 journalists trooped into the hall, filling it up. Dr Singh suggested the press conference should be in the morning. Both Mani and Vikram agreed, saying he would look fresh and rested in the morning. I disagreed and told them that in the age of live television Saturday morning was not ‘prime’ time and a pre-lunch event would enable the Opposition to dominate the airwaves at prime time in the evening. The headlines in the evening news bulletins would not be about what the PM said, but about what his critics were saying. The PM agreed to schedule the event at 5 p.m. This would give TV journalists headline material and print journalists enough time to file their reports for the next day’s papers.

On the morning of the press conference, I found only half an hour had been allotted for the interaction. I was dismayed. I was told that Mani and Nair had decided between them that it was best to restrict the press conference to thirty minutes so that nothing went wrong. I went to the PM and told him this would be counterproductive. At least fifty of the 500 journalists expected should be allowed to ask questions, I pointed out. I reasoned that even if each question took a minute to answer, the press conference would have to go on for an hour. To my relief, Dr Singh readily agreed. He asked Vikram Doraiswamy not to schedule any meeting for that evening. I saw this as a welcome signal of his willingness to spend even more than an hour with the media. As it turned out, the press conference lasted for ninety minutes and fifty-two questions were asked.

Later that morning, I went across to Vigyan Bhavan along with my colleague Muthu Kumar, a very competent information service officer with an impressive record at Doordarshan, to arrange the dais and the positioning of the Doordarshan camera. The public broadcaster’s cameras were the only ones to be placed in the hall and private channels would get free live feed from them. This arrangement enabled me to fix the frame to the PM’s advantage, rather than leave the angles to be determined by the private channels. The viewer would see only the PM’s face on television in a close shot and the size of the audience in a long shot. The PM would speak against the backdrop of the Tricolour and the three lions on the Ashoka Pillar—both symbols of the Indian state.

All officials would be seated in the audience. On hearing about this, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi called to object. How could the PM address a press conference without the information and broadcasting minister sitting next to him, he protested, when his ministry was the official event organizer. I told him that I had taken this decision on the advice of Sharada Prasad, who had informed me that Indiraji and Rajivji had addressed the media in this manner. He mumbled something and hung up.

Muthu ensured that the journalists were seated in groups, with English-language print in one section and TV in another, the Hindi media in one section and other Indian languages grouped together, and Urdu media given a separate row. Foreign media was seated at the back. This way, I could call out names, or numbers (since every journalist had been given a placard with a number on it), from different sections of the audience, to ensure that every segment of the media got a chance to ask a question.

Logistics were important, no doubt, but the key strategic consideration was that Dr Singh should be seen answering every and any kind of question without reference to officials. By doing so, he was meant to establish that he had command over the entire gamut of policy. He needed to show that he knew as much about nuclear policy as he did about river water disputes; was as familiar with farmers’ issues as with fiscal issues; knew as much about Kashmir as he did about Telangana. In order to save time, the standard opening statement was abandoned. A 1000-word statement detailing what the UPA government had done in its first 100 days in office was circulated and taken as read. The conference went straight into question time.

At the end, I was pleased at our hit rate: we had anticipated fifty- one of the fifty-two questions. The one unanticipated question was from Jay Raina of
Hindustan
Times,
who wanted to know what the PM thought of his ‘spin doctor’s work’. The PM smiled, even as the audience laughed, but gave a quizzical look. It appeared he was not aware of the term ‘spin doctor’.

By the end of the press conference, the media was astounded. Dr Singh had proved the
Outlook
story right. He had not come across as weak or unsure, and did not appear to need help in answering a question. No one disrupted the press conference. As he left the dais, the entire media stood up as a sign of respect. The first step in branding Manmohan Singh as a man of prime ministerial timber was taken.

That evening Mani Dixit hosted a dinner at his home. When I reached, he held out his hand and hugged me and said he was wrong to have been worried. He conceded that I was right to have adopted a ‘high-risk’ strategy, as he put it. Mani and some others in the PMO had thought that exposing the PM to media scrutiny in the manner I did was fraught with the risk of Dr Singh coming across as inadequately aware of the range of political and diplomatic issues that would be brought up.

‘If it had failed, everyone would have asked for your head,’ said Mani. ‘You deserve a drink. Come in.’

My phone kept ringing through the evening with friends from the media complimenting the PM and congratulating me for getting him to address the media. I took every call. As I walked into Mani’s living room an RCR number flashed on my mobile. It was Dr Singh himself.

‘I was watching TV,’ he said, adding in his economical way, ‘I think they are all happy. There is nothing negative so far.’

I told him he was superb and that I had spent much of the evening responding to callers complimenting the PM. Mani placed a much- needed glass of single malt in my hand.

 

 

The national press conference was not an exercise in transparency and accountability. It was meant to demonstrate to the country and even to the media that Dr Singh had a mind of his own. That he was not a ‘rubber stamp’ PM but was in fact ‘in charge’ and
au
fait
with his brief. That he had a prime minister’s grasp on a wide range of national and international issues and was not some academic economist or a file- pushing government official.

While Dr Singh was pleased that night with the generally favourable TV coverage, the next morning’s headlines pleased him even more. Most papers highlighted Dr Singh’s answer to the very last question of the press conference, from a woman journalist. ‘Mr Prime Minister,’ she asked, ‘it is being said in certain quarters that the threat to Dr Manmohan Singh comes not from the Left or from the Opposition, but from Dr Manmohan Singh himself and that if you are pushed against the wall and compelled to do things that go against your grain in the course of keeping the coalition together, you might just decide to put in your papers. Could such a thing happen?’