Can manly Advani match weakling Manmohan?
By Guest Blogger • Apr 3rd, 2009 • Category: Politics • 13 CommentsThe BJP says Manmohan Singh is weak and no match for their strongman Advani.
Is that true? Let us examine their qualifications.
Born in 1932, Manmohan Singh graduated in economics from Punjab University, read for his tripos (first class honours) from St John’s College, Cambridge University, where he won the Wright’s Prize in 1955 and the Adam Smith prize in 1956. He got his DPhil from Nuffield College, Oxford University, in 1962.
His thesis was on “India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self- Sustained Growth”. By age 30, he understood that Nehru’s inward- looking economic policy was misplaced.
He has worked at the United Nations, served as governor of the Reserve Bank, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and chairman of the University Grants Commission. He has taught at Punjab University and Delhi School of Economics.
In government, he reversed what we call Nehruvian socialism during his five years as finance minister between 1991 and 1996. His policy crafting gave India economic success, through a doctrine now called Manmohanomics, which he continued in his five years as prime minister from 2004 to 2009.
In 1991, the year Manmohan became finance minister, India’s per capita GDP was $328, and Pakistan’s was $458. In 2008, Pakistan’s was $623 and India’s $900. From 28 per cent behind Pakistan, India went ahead 30 per cent because of him. No Indian leader has ever been as qualified, or as effective, as Manmohan Singh.
Born in 1927, L K Advani attended D G National College, Hyderabad, Sindh, but could not get a degree. His website says he got an LLB from Bombay University’s Government Law College, but does not say when, and his autobiography does not mention this degree at all.
He worked for the RSS publication Organiser till 1967, where he wrote film reviews. After a brief term in the Delhi municipal council, because of his RSS connection, Advani was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Jailed along with other opposition leaders during Indira Gandhi’s emergency of 1975-77, Advani came to power as the combined opposition defeated the Congress for the first time since independence.
Because of his journalism experience, Advani became minister for information and broadcasting in 1977. At the age of 45, this was his first job in an executive position. It was a brief experience; the government collapsed in two years.
In the 80s, Advani became a star when he campaigned on the Babri Masjid issue across India. It was demolished on December 6, 1992. He says he did not anticipate this, showing his lack of understanding of the Indian mind, and of consequences. Over 2,000 Indians were killed.
As home minister in Vajpayee’s government (1999-2004), Advani got his second executive job at age 72. Did he build his tough-man image then?
No.
He surrendered to Jaish-e-Mohammad at Kandahar after the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane in December 1999, and released Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Shaikh, who later beheaded Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl.
In March 2002, as Union home minister he could not prevent the massacres in Gujarat, in which 1,000 were killed.
If he has no record to speak of, why do his supporters call him strong?
Sadly, this image comes from his willingness to do violence to India’s Muslims. His failures are his successes to his admirers.
Advani actually has very little experience in executive or policy positions. And he does not show evidence of being able to overcome this lack of experience through his intellect, or his effort.
His autobiography (”My Country, My Life”) is maudlin, and peppered with mistakes. With typical hyperbole, he calls the emergency the “darkest period in Indian history” but then he reports its years wrong (pages 259, 266, 270). He spent years in villages in RSS service, but mistakes (on page 69) Guinea worm for tapeworm.
Advani’s problem is that his intellectual bandwidth is limited by his ordinary education. He is not at the same level as Oxbridge’s Manmohan, and Harvard’s Obama.
His reading is basic and he likes it pre-digested through writers like William Shirer and Thomas Friedman.
In a lifetime in opposition, Advani has stirred the pot with drawing-room solutions to emotional problems. The sort of problems that trouble our aching nationalists. India is weak — we must build an atom bomb! Pakistan is doing terrorism — we must hit back! Hindu sentiment is hurt — we must replace the Babri masjid!
Such a Manichean and innocent view of the world is touching, because it comes out of trauma (Advani was kicked out of Karachi at partition).
One of the most moving moments of his life, according to Advani, was when on a tour to the Himalayas, he asked what a passing stream was, and was told it was the Indus, Sindhu nadi, from which he gets his Sindhi identity and we get our nation’s name.
He is unable to separate himself from this sentimentalism.
Though he keeps attacking India’s minority-ism, his own mentality is still that of a besieged minority from Sindh.
Manmohan was also kicked out (he is from village Gah in Chakwal), but has lifted himself above our sub-continental pettiness.
Manmohan has the exposure, and the intellect, to detach himself from the insanity below. Advani cannot do this, because he has been wading in it and beating his breast, even after Indians built one of the most successful democracies in the world.
Crucially, Manmohan has deep access into pan-Indian culture because of his ability to read, in addition to Hindi and Gurmukhi, Urdu.
He educated Indians on Iqbal through his budget speeches as finance minister. I was familiar with Tarana-e-Hindi (which Indians know as Saare jahan say achcha), but I had not registered its most stirring couplet till I heard Manmohan recite it in his Punjabi lilt: Yunan-o-Misr-o-Roma, sub mitt gaye jahan say, ab tak magar hai baqi naam-o-nishaan hamara.
Advani does not have this access into his own culture because, as he wrote to his regret, he did not learn to read Sanskrit. His grandmother could read Gurmukhi, but he could not.
While he speaks Sindhi well (Benazir opened a conversation with him in Sindhi but then could not continue it), he cannot read it in Nastaliq because he went to an English-medium school, St Patrick’s in Karachi.
He mistakes Persian script for Arabic (page 34).
He writes that till the age of 20 he did not even speak Hindi properly. Not particularly good qualifications for a man whose policy thrusts — Ram temple, Uniform Civil Code, Article 370 — are all cultural.
Politically, both Manmohan and Advani are weak, and dependent.
Manmohan is a member of Rajya Sabha (not directly elected), and serves at the pleasure of Sonia Gandhi.
Advani contests for the Lok Sabha, but from Gujarat, where he is at Modi’s mercy (Advani cannot speak Gujarati). And he has spent a lifetime bending his knee to the RSS, which echoes his seething resentment of Muslims.
But while he’s politically weak, Manmohan is undisputed master of policy. And because of his integrity, Sonia Gandhi has given him a freehand where it matters.
Sonia did not push for the Indo-American strategic alliance; that is all Manmohan.
Manmohan brings an economist’s cold view to policy: he has the mind of the bania, rather than the warrior, whom we more readily identify with Advani. Advani loves Rajasthan, India’s only martial state, and has “developed a fascination for this land of heroes and martyrs.”
India does not need its leaders to be martial heroes and martyrs. We need education and healthcare and a strong economy.
India, and also Pakistan, needs a bania’s self-preserving mentality because under the warrior’s code, we commit suicide quite easily, like we did in 1962’s avoidable war with China.
Advani doesn’t want the Indo-US nuclear deal because it is surrender.
Under it, some current and all future nuclear installations will be now classified as civilian and subject to international regulation, while others will be outside scrutiny, free to make weapons. What is wrong with this deal? India has been starved of nuclear technology for four decades, which it will now get freely. But Advani says it makes us ’strategically subservient’ because the US does not treat us as ‘equals’.
He sees foreign policy in terms of honour and dishonour.
Advani is clueless on economics because of his lack of education, and uninterested in it because the subject lacks heroic emotion.
If he does take power, his urge for martyrdom will be disciplined by India’s bureaucracy, as Vajpayee’s was before him. He will be made more realist by the limits of power, which will deflate his bombast, as he finally gets a proper education, at age 82.
The writer is a former newspaper editor who lives in Bombay.
Source : News
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Good article, when I read the title I commented that Advani, manly, at the age of 80. But after reading this article the that thought changed. He is still not manly, but the additional information makes him look more of a loser rather than manly.
BJP (excluding Mr.Vajpayee) and Advani are good for nothing. He can only deliver hate speeches to some specific group of hindu people. Can you compare Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s secular thoughts with Advani? Absolutely not. Mr. Manmohan thinks for the nation as a whole irrespective of religion or caste but Advani is ranting the same thing… Ram Mandir….Ram Mandir to get hindu votes in his bag. He has even insulted the constitution of India by promising to some hindus that they will re-build Ram Mandir on Babri Masjid, whereas it is clearly specified in the constitution of India of 1950 that all the existing religious heritage in India must remain intact and must not be maneuvered by anyone or group after the implementation of this constitution. Anyone trying to Change/sabotage the existing religious places and heritages will face the charges as laid down in it. I am an Indian and I truly believe and respect in the constiution of India. Any true Indian, be it hindu or muslims or christians or sikhs, would certainly not support people like Advani who goes against our constitution.
Nice article. It has lot of information even for Indians. For the record, I too think Manmohan-ji is the most eligible PM for India now and in future.
i fully support MANMOHAN SINGH as India’s NEXT PM.
i think India needs HONEST AND SINCERE leaders to lead us.
QUIET COMPETENCE is how i would like to define MANMOHAN SINGH.
Singh is King.
What many people DO NOT understand is, INDIA’S IMAGE AS A “SOFT” POWER is actually helping India at the international level.
No one like bullies………India needs to have a GOOD BOY IMAGE.
Manmohan Singh ensures that
Manmohan Singh rocks big time.
Indians
After seeing yours energetic prime ministers like Indira, rajiv it is very difficult to absorb the old, weak and retired characters on your top seat.First vajpaye,then manmahoon singh it some how revealed that yours political structure lacks in active and comparatively young breed for representing the nation.I think India is one of countries in the world which select the retiring guys as their PMs.
nazia,
NEVER under-estimate the WISDOM AND INTELLIGENCE of the OLD.
Remember OLD IS GOLD.
Few FACTS:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PM: VAJPAYEE
1> Made India a NUCLEAR POWER.
2> Changed India from an International Middleweight to a INTERNATIONAL HEAVYWEIGHT COUNTRY.
3> Gave India a PERFECT START in the 21st century,
4> Created MORE THAN 10,000 KM of National Highways.
5> Transformed INDIA-USA RELATIONSHIP.
6> 8% GROWTH STARTED during Vajpayee’s time.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>PM : Manmohan Singh
1> In 1991, Opened up INDIAN ECONOMY………and changed the course of India from a low performing to a HIGH PERFORMING COUNTRY.
2>Gave INDIA-USA nuke deal.
3>Ensured 8.5% growth rate ON AVERAGE.
and many many more.
>>>>>>Also DONT FORGET (G)OLD Pranab , He achived what no other minister could.That is FORCING PAKISTAN to own up responsibility………..all without MOVING A SINGLE TROOP.
These guys are GOLD STANDARDS.
Dear Nazia,
The role of a prime minieter is not to fight in the boxing ring or to play cricket. He/she is given a seat with a major responsibility of the country. Only learned experienced candidates can manage to handle the domestic and international diplomatic affairs and pressures of the country. Don’t you think India is successful and has progressed because of our such purana chawals?
The young generations can be energetic but at the same time can also be aggressive. So sometimes, they may also take decisions and actions which may not be in favour of the harmony of the country. I hope you get my point.
Regards
Prem
I know very well that PM is not meant for boxing or come from WWF but energetic leader or manager always create different environment in working areas.In yours system if you place your president in wheel chair then really it dosnt matter but in the PM post one should be presentable, active and sharp.Old is always gold as said by incredible but old could be placed in think tanks or in consultancy in policy making areas.Chief executive is presentation of whole nation and if he comes in front of people with the aids of attendants then it surely looks clumsy.Democratic system never run by one man IQ’s level.It is complete team work of many brains so dont give credit of yours success to one man.Its yours long sustainable democratic system that is giving you you fruits of success.Any how it is yours internal matter and if you want your PM like that then we can only pray for his long life and health.
There is absolutely no doubt that Manmohan Singh is the best thing to have happened to India after independence. He is simple and sincere man with absolutely clean image. Only thing I failed to understand is what is he doing in Congress, a party which is responsible for killings of thousands of sikhs in Delhi, who has again succeeded in giving clean chit to Tytler and arguably is most corrupt with no principals what so ever.
Dear Akhtar Hussain,
You asked “What is Mr.Manmohan Singh doing in congress is same as asking “What is Syed Shahnawaz Hussein doing in BJP?” You see it is all a political stunt to attract the people of a certain community as their vote banks. It has nothing to do with religion in general. For example, if BJP wins this election, it will not in anyway affect muslims. The ruling party will have to obey and abide by the country’s running system, seeing that all the citizens are satisfied under their government. Moreover, the ruling party is always scrutinized by their rivals, if they try to do or go against the system. It is all balanced. One day I heard an old man telling his fellow that every ruling party must have an arch rival to oppose, which will prevent the ruling from doing any unjust in the government for the fear of being opposed.
No doubt congress was responsible for the killings of sikhs. But that was past. Did you see sikhs being killed after that. NO. Same way, did you see muslims being killed after Gujarat riots. NO. We Indians have the good attitude of learning from our mistakes. We try never to repeat our mistakes. Riots in India could have re-emerged after Akshardham incident, after Mumbai train blasts incidents, after 26/11 Mumbai Terror attacks, after Parliament attacks, after Malegaon blasts but there was no communal riots even after such major incidents. It was because of the wisdom of our people. The people understood that some foreign hands doesn’t wants us to live in unity and peacefully. Only the common will suffer from such riots. It will only bring hatred and self destruction. It is because of this understanding today, that we find ourselves living peacefully and in unity.
Naziaji,
Thanks for your comment. But frankly speaking, the government should be run by intelligent and experienced people, whether they are silent or lame, young or old. Personality is counted by their deeds and not looks. I did not find anything lacking in Manmohan Singh, Mr.Pranab Mukherjee and Mr.Atal Bihari Vajpayee in their terms of governance. I feel Primie Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr.Vajpayee among India’s best prime ministers. Obviously, we cannot expect our country to run by young and energetic Shahrukh Khan or Hrithik Roshan who will eventually bring the nation on the dance floor. (just joking).
Regards
Prem
prem
One thing to tell you in this regards that yours shahrukh khan is more popular in the world than your manmohan singh.Last years I have traveled a lot towards remote areas of sahara desert and north african muslim countries.The first thing I saw about India is Shah rukh ’s photo even hanging in tents of sahara desert.So at this moment India’s true identifications in the world are yours hero and heroines successfully ruling the hearts of people of all classes,religion and languages.Sometime give us frustration and jealousy too but accept it too without hesitation.
Dear Nazia,
Well well, I was not aware that India and Indians are famous in Sahara Deserts too. Hmmmm….Great ! Poor guy Manmohan, this man works day and night caring about the nation and its citizen but alas ! what he gets, only accusations and abuses and even termed as a weak person when infact he is the one who compelled pakistan in our 60 years of history, to accept that 26/11 terror attacks was committed by their citizens and from their soil. Ch ch ch ch….. And Shahrukh…what special has he done? Danced and acted and came in some advertisements of soaps and creams with some beautiful ladies. But see his amazing popularity. I am really jealous of you Shahrukh.
Even Osama Bin Laden is more popular too, so can we say that Osama should also stand in the election for prime ministers seat of Afghanistan? (just joking again)