Dr. Manmohan Singh

I was still in my graduation when Dr Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India. That was the time when people of our age has started taking interest in the politics. I knew little bit of it and was learning of the happenings around the world. At that time lot many things were new to my mind. Those were formative years and we were learning the things we were not in good position to make a very clear and solid view point. More than six years have passed since then and I have been through 2 jobs between this period and traveled this country from Kashmir to Kerala, Bengal to Wagah. Today I believe that there are lot many things on which I can have informed opinions.

So Dr Manmohan Singh when he became prime minister was supposed to be the best candidate only P Chidambaram could have rivaled him at that time in fact even now there is nobody in the ruling camp even now who can rival his CV. At that time there used to be a mail in circulation that we have such a qualified PM and we are progressing well in this country. In fact after the six rule of NDA government and lot of investment in infrastructure we had started growing really fast to the tunes of 8% annualized GDP growth rate. That was the time when Sonia Gandhi was being hailed by our media as mother India and example of sacrifice. She achieved almost goddess like status in the mind of most of the people thanks to our free media controlled by rich people and Congress party. Dr Manmohan Singh's CV was mailed around the country so many time.

Soon however things started to clear themselves. He was nothing but a puppet. few years before that Lalu has used his wife as puppet to rule Bihar. This time Sonia has used this guy as puppet. Puppet or no puppet I had great admiration for this guy because he was best in the herd as far as honesty was concerned. But then honesty is not the thing that you require to rule a country of this size, it need leadership, it require guidance, it need somebody who can take a stand and who have a vision. In those days only I read Dr Kalam's book "India 2020" and this is very well written book and for a while it seemed Dr MMS is great continuation of legacy of Dr Kalam and Vajpayee as prime minister. We were happy that one visionary was replaced by another and there was always guiding light of Dr Kalam.

First shock came in the light of election of Pratibha Patil as president of the country. They put a lady from nowhere in the seat which was graced by likes of Dr Kalam, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr Radhakrishnan. But then we thought president is symbolic figurehead and we still have qualified PM. Moreover Dr MMS had nothing to do with election of president.But that was first step where it was evident that perhaps he is the puppet. But we believed that he will rise above all this and show the mettle, I am sorry to say nothing like that happened. he disgraced himself more and more as the time passed. he was unable to take the stand on any of the issues.

Then came 2005 and they announce NAREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). Although I had read little bit of economics by that time but could not guess at that time that it will be most corrupt and fool-proof corrupt scheme of all time. The funds that were being invested in infrastructure development prior to that were now diverted to this scheme and as the election of 2009 came closure spending of this scheme was increased even further. As a consequence labour rates increased inflation increased but there was no proportionate increase in the productivity, in fact productivity came down. It was justified in the name of wealth redistribution which supposedly increases the productivity in the economy. But one very important factor that we ignored at that time which I came to know and understand only after reaching IIMA was that wealth redistribution will enhance productivity if it is above two basic constraints (unfortunately nobody talked about these constraints) viz. minimum level of prosperity and very skewed distribution of wealth prior to implementation if redistribution. Manmohan Singh being an economist must have known these things but still he did nothing. As the time passed we came to know that it did not reduce any poverty in last five years.

When I went for a blind trekking to an Andhra village in 2009 I came to understand the real picture. Because of NREGA people in village are getting income without work and if you want to hire them for work they simply tell you that we are getting that much without work then why should I work for the same amount of money. Moreover there was no accountability in this scheme as people were supposed to dig some ponds and this kind of things. Now if you want to verify that if some real work was going on then you visit the place. There you will not find any pond and people will tell you that it got filled up in dues period because of rains or something or they will show u some old pond. But Dr MMS let this scheme run even though inflation was running very high (and I am sure that he is not dumb not to understand this simple fact). This inflation was because of-
1. Increase in labour cost and hence decrease in productivity in agriculture
2. Increase in demand because of this money but no increase in production since now one of the basic resource became very costly (i.e. labour)
3. Increase in supply of money in the economy.

Hence if onion prices are so high its not a surprise for me. It is very logical consequence of policies adopted by our scholar PM Mr MMS. But then why to blame him All decisions are taken at Ms Sonia Meno's home at 10 Janpath influenced by corrupt and sycophant people who deposit the share of Meno family in swiss bank accounts so that there is no doubt in the mind of people regarding the clean image of first family.

Then came series of corruption and scams. Now if you are man of action then you keep silent and do your work which says it all, but if you don't take any action and keep mum it is confirmation of your puppet status. Even then Dr MMS kept quite. Comonwealth games came and we were ashamed in front of whole world. These are the times when a nation try to showcase itself on international stage but we showed what nobody want to show.

Economic Reforms:
What we know today as economy reforms are not actually economic reforms carried out in a thoughtful manner. These are the changes that we were forced to make by IMF and World Bank during crisis of 1991. We were forced to open our economy to international market. It is the sheer size of the country that we escaped that otherwise so many other states have gone in deeper crisis after that and became banana republics. Had Dr MMS been such a good economists he might have brought those changes when he was deputy chairman of planning commission and governor of RBI (only man to have seen both bodies), but as we know he did not in fact it was after his tenure at planning commission that crisis of 1991 happened. Our fiscal deficit crossed 10% of our GDP at that time and credibility ratings of the country went down.

After so many efforts government of Vajpayee brought this deficit under some control but again in his rule deficit is rising and it is already at the level of 8%. In fact falling credibility of Indian economy is reflected in the weakening currency. And here it is even more important to note that rupee is falling now already against a weak dollar. Still nobody at the top level seems to be concerned about the future of the country. MMS government is busy in defending Mr Q in Bofors rather than bring him and other offenders to book. For this government there is very special reason to defend Mr Q because if he is brought to book danger of first family of corrupt India to be exposed is higher, if that happens then danger of Corrupt party (Congress) falling apart is even more serious, because that family make the nucleus of this whole corrupt system. If nucleus is hit atom is supposed to fall apart and that is what they are saving, THE NUCLEUS.

Real danger for this country is that if people like Dr MMS choose to be puppets what will happen to common man. However alternative fact might be he is expert puppet and reached this level of puppetry by playing the perfect puppet.