Sunanda K Datta Ray: A minority view

WHERE MONEY TALKS/ Manmohan Singh, the father of Indian reforms should be the next PM

It won't happen, but the Congress victory would be most meaningful if the self-effacing Manmohan Singh heads the new ruling alliance.

He may not want to, but there is political wisdom in at last appointing a prime minister from a minority community.

Moreover, the father of Indian liberalisation can fine-tune reforms to avoid friction with allies on the left while modifying those aspects of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescription that may have contributed to the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat.

The greatest service that Sonia Gandhi can do her country of adoption is to take on the role of mother figure above the hurly burly of daily governance so that Indians can benefit from Manmohan Singh's wisdom and experience.

India is a land of paradoxes. Appearances can be deceptive. Indira Gandhi told me once that Kamlapati Tripathi "" the Uttar Pradesh pandit with a bemused expression who always wore a dhoti "" was a modern man.

"Don't be taken in by all that" she added, rubbing her forefinger on her own forehead to indicate Tripathi's heavy sandalwood paste caste marks. "He has a modern mind."

Another image that came to mind in the context of the Telugu Desam Party's defeat in Andhra Pradesh goes back to the fifties and the birth control programme.

Apparently, Marie Stopes, the British gynaecologist, feminist and social reformer, advised Jawaharlal Nehru's government to teach women about the rhythm method. So, strings of beads were distributed in the villages where women were told to count them to calculate when the safe period came round.

On her next visit to India, Stopes was surprised to learn that there had been no fall in childbirth in the region where the beads had been distributed. Investigating what might have gone wrong, she found that instead of counting days, the women had hung those strings from a nail above the front door, expecting them to work like a magic talisman in averting pregnancy.

The two incidents highlight the relationship between symbol and substance. Both are necessary in public life but, sometimes, one can outreach the other.

That happened in Andhra Pradesh where Chandrababu Naidu's laptop became an end in itself instead of remaining the means to such ends as faster and more equitable growth. His defeat is a reminder that the vote is a great equaliser. Economic programmes in a country of extremes must be as acceptable to the landless peasant as to Anil Ambani. That's another Indian paradox.

Whatever the original compulsion, the 1991 reforms could claim this dimension of human understanding. P V Narasimha Rao's rationale for liberalisation made sense in the context of complex socio-economic conditions.

"There would be blood on the streets" he explained, if he waited for only the ripple effect of foreign investment to alleviate poverty. He wanted capital from abroad to release domestic resources for social welfare and infrastructure. So, his finance minister rolled up the red tape and rolled out the red carpet, as Time magazine put it.

The book of rules on overseas trade was cut from 850 pages to 87. Drastic austerity measures brought down inflation. Repatriation of the gold Chandra Shekhar had sent abroad restored public confidence.

Abolition of wealth tax, a measure that was a sentimental genuflexion to Fabian socialism rather than an economic instrument, made it possible for Azim Premji to emerge.

What has attracted less notice is that Manmohan Singh cannot have been without strategic skills. Narasimha Rao's Independence Day promise of subsidies confirmed that he always had an eye cocked at the voter. The finance minister also had to keep Michel Camdessus at the IMF placated, and to counter domestic critics.

How did he manage it? First, by extracting legitimacy from Rajiv Gandhi's 1991 election manifesto which promised to replace a "lethargic, inefficient and expensive" public sector with one that was "leaner, more dynamic and profit oriented."

Second, by not publicising his plans even at cabinet meetings. Instead, he discussed them privately with Lal Krishna Advani and obtained his endorsement in advance. Even the BJP's Govindacharya praised him for taking "more radical steps in one month than past governments in 43 years."

To choose him would spare India's party of independence the insulting charge of not being able to rally behind one of the billion and more people born in this country. It would deprive the BJP of an obvious propaganda plank and apply a healing touch to Congress's coalition partners. He can work with the substantial BJP opposition.

Nowadays, we tend to equate minority with Muslim. Manmohan Singh could restore a wider meaning to the word and demonstrate how much India needs its minorities to live up to the old boast of unity in diversity.

Being himself both above party politicking and from a minority that has also felt the brunt of majority brutality, he would be better equipped than anyone else to keep together the heterogenous coalition that is replacing the NDA. We might otherwise be in for a period of instability compounded by personality clashes.

Hearing Salman Khursheed contemptuously dismiss the BJP's "shopping around" for partners while eulogizing the Congress search for like-minded allies reminded me of Harry S. Truman's comment: "When a leader is in the Democraticv Party he's a boss, and when he's in the Republican Party he's a leader."

No doubt Sonia Gandhi is the boss, but Manmohan Singh is a potential leader.