The economist Jagdish Bhagwati used to tell the story of chancing upon the application of a good friend's daughter to the highly competitive graduate programme at Columbia University, where he has taught for decades. Professor Bhagwati was surprised as the friend had not even mentioned that his daughter was applying. The friend was Manmohan Singh.
Of all the stories about Manmohan Singh's weaknesses as prime minister, there are just as many about his innate decency and self-effacing nature. Both virtues are handicaps in the snakes and ladders that is Indian politics today, but that is more an indictment of the political system and of India. That Dr Singh did not wield the real power in the Congress must come as a surprise only to those who have amnesia about the history of that dynastic party from 1971 onwards. Stop the presses: they will be discovering the world is round next.
Dr Singh is an easy target - but how many professional CEOs are given a free hand in family-owned companies in India? In this country of Olympian sycophancy, how exactly does a professional manager impose himself on an organisation when the real power rests with the owners? Over the past decade, the comings and goings of professional CEOs at Jet Airways, Ranbaxy, SRF and Britannia suggest this transition is difficult.
Many of us cheered when a search committee was created in 2010 to find a replacement for Ratan Tata. As capable as Cyrus Mistry has proved at the helm of Tata Sons, the fact that he hails from the family that has the single largest shareholding in Tata Sons means his appointment did not mark a revolutionary change.
Running a company is child's play by comparison with trying to run this fractious country. The compulsions of politics have weakened the resolve of many prime ministers. Dr Singh is no exception. The late P V Narasimha Rao had his difficult moments managing an unwieldy coalition. Atal Bihari Vajpayee sought Narendra Modi's resignation in 2002, but was blocked by loud cheers of support for Mr Modi at the party meeting in Goa. It is the inability of Dr Singh to push for the allocation of coal blocks through open bids despite readily agreeing to then secretary P C Parakh that this was the right thing to do that is the most puzzling of his lapses. It is incomprehensible and indefensible. But at least Dr Singh has always been incorruptible himself. He has declined even to attend functions organised by the non-governmental organisations one of his daughters works for. How many of us live by such standards?
By contrast, the extended family of the former Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, amassed assets of more than $2 billion while he was prime minister in China according to a New York Times expose. Corruption in economies that are growing as fast as India, China or Indonesia but with weak institutions is a fact of life. Yes, we need anti-corruption agencies that police it impartially and courts that move speedily - but neither adjective is commonly used in India. A leader with the powers of Xi Jinping, China's president, might succeed in curbing it, but the leader of a coalition in a democracy has a much harder challenge.
The Congress and Dr Singh deserve criticism for the anarchic way in which ministers have operated, but only in a country as insular as India would the current economic slowdown be blamed entirely on the government. Brazil, Russia and South Africa are all growing at GDP rates lower than ours. This month the International Monetary Fund warned of subpar global growth for the near-term future. The Financial Times has just started a series on the "Fragile Middle" - more than two billion people worldwide who, in Rama Bijapurkar's evocative phrase, managed to get on to the footboard of the consumption train but now risk falling off it as growth slows worldwide. Credit Suisse recently put in context the charge of policy paralysis; it must also be directed at state governments: "Only a fourth of projects are stuck with the central government."
Companies across the world went on a debt binge after 2003. Corporate India's net debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, or Ebitda (at 3.6 times), and interest cover (1.9 times) are at multi-year lows, according to Standard Chartered. The next few years, especially if growth remains stuck at under five per cent, are likely to make those numbers worse. It is a gross over-simplification to blame all these problems on the government of the day, let alone the prime minister, but we habitually overpersonalise issues.
Dr Singh has his faults, but he is also a Lincolnesque character, who walked miles to get to school. He studied under street lamps and earned a scholarship to study at Cambridge. The pace at which he sequenced the reforms of the early 1990s has been widely praised. He built the foundation for our expectations of faster GDP growth today - in a sense the reforms of the 1990s started the process of making India modern. In retrospect, he should have tilted harder at reforming labour laws then and as prime minister. But in a country that abounds with boastful, pompous men - candidates who compare themselves to Russell Crowe in Gladiator, compliment their own dress sense or release books of putrid poetry - Mr Singh's principal weakness is also his most likeable virtue. His lack of forcefulness stems in large part from his modesty.
Twitter: @RahulJJacob
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