Nice speech, but...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's maiden Independence Day speech could not have been much better either in tone or content. Or even duration.

He spoke for 45 minutes, didn't make a single fiscally imprudent promise, and reminded the country of the things that are truly important. Water, or rather the need to avoid disputes over it, was one of the latter.

Thanks to the abrupt manner in which Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh brought the issue to the fore, it was incumbent upon the Prime Minister to mention it. A politician in the old mould would probably have skirted the issue.

But perhaps because of the letter Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote to him and surely because he sees the long-term potential for national disruption, Singh made his disapproval clear.

But that will not be enough. He needs to take follow-up steps. This newspaper has argued that water must be declared a national asset. Singh must start building the necessary national consensus for this to become a reality.

The other truly important issue is that of the "tainted" ministers. As someone whose conscience must protest a thousand times a day for being forced to accommodate in his cabinet politicians with criminal charges pending against them, Singh used the opportunity to talk about this as well.

He wants a code of conduct for political parties and eventually there will indeed be one. But charity begins at home. So he must set an example by first dropping the people in question from his own party who have managed to become ministers.

Gandhiji never asked anyone to do anything that he was not himself willing to do. Singh ought to follow that principle. On the economy, too, Singh was absolutely clear. Without adequate social and physical infrastructure, he said, growth would not be rapid enough to absorb the millions who enter the job market every year. But he faces two very difficult problems here.

Where social infrastructure is concerned, delivery is not in his hands; where physical infrastructure is concerned, his own allies, the perverse Left, may slow down progress. It will be interesting to see how the Prime Minister resolves these two problems because good intentions alone may not be enough.

Finally, the emphasis on nation building. Not many from the younger generations would fully understand what he was talking about because they take Indian nationhood for granted.

But as events""not just in the North-East and J&K, but also in Punjab and Maharashtra""show, there are still some residual question marks over the central government's authority and ability to have its way. Removing these requires a combination of toughness and conciliation.

The UPA government's record so far has not been very impressive because those who challenge the basic notions of Indian nationhood have been allowed to have their way. Everyone knows Singh's government believes in compassionate governance. But it needs to demonstrate that it also knows how to be firm.