‘Slave’ breaks free MANINI CHATTERJEE
New Delhi, July 22: The muted war cry — so be it — uttered a year ago was fleshed out into a long and stirring victory speech on the floor of the Lok Sabha today as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lashed out at both the Left and Right and sought to establish himself as a strong and visionary leader in his own right.
In the face of constant interruptions, the Prime Minister gave up trying to read the speech in full. But even in cold print, Manmohan Singh shone out in his new avatar – angry, combative, resolute, confident and unshaken in his conviction that the nuclear deal was “a giant step forward to lead India to become a major power centre” of the world.
He took on L.K. Advani at the outset but Prakash Karat — who went unnamed — was the target of a much more lethal attack. “Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced to keep because of miscalculations by their General Secretary,” the Prime Minister said, a politically loaded comment aimed at widening the wedge within the CPM on the issue of voting along with the BJP.
He also made it a point — as he had when he moved the confidence motion yesterday — to “recall with gratitude the guidance and support I have received from Shri Jyoti Basu and Sardar Harkishen Singh Surjeet.” That he was seeking to contrast their pragmatism with Karat’s ideological intransigence was not lost on anyone.
Attacking both the BJP and the Left for seeking to destabilise his government, he said: “When I look at the composition of the opportunistic group opposed to us, it is clear to me that the clash today is between two alternative visions of India’s future.”
While the UPA “and our allies” saw India as a self-confident and united nation, “the opposite vision is of a motley crowd opposed to us who have come together to share the spoils of office to promote their sectional, sectarian and parochial interests.”
And rubbing in the Left’s discomfiture of voting along with the BJP, he added: “Our Left colleagues should tell us whether L.K. Advani is acceptable to them as a Prime Minister candidate. Shri L.K. Advani should enlighten us if he will step aside as prime ministerial candidate of the Opposition in favour of the choice of UNPA.”
Turning the Left’s charge that he had “betrayed” them on the nuclear deal on its head, the Prime Minister declared that “they wanted me to behave as their bonded slave”.
All he had asked the Left, he said, was “please allow us to go through the negotiating process and I will come to Parliament before operationalising the nuclear agreement. This simple courtesy which is essential for orderly functioning of any government worth the name, particularly with regard to the conduct of foreign policy, they were not willing to grant me. They wanted a veto over every single step of negotiations which is not acceptable. They wanted me to behave as their bonded slave.”
Deftly side-stepping the charge that he had violated the coalition dharma by insisting on a deal that was not mentioned in the common minimum programme, the Prime Minister said: “The nuclear agreement may not have been mentioned…. However, there was an explicit mention of the need to develop closer relations with the USA but without sacrificing our independent foreign policy.”
His attack on Advani was more personal but less political than on Karat. Advani, he said, had often been abusive — and referred to the epithets “the weakest Prime Minister,” a “nikamma PM” et al. Making out Advani to be a man hungry for power, he said: “To fulfil his ambitions, he has made at least three attempts to topple our government. But on each occasion his astrologers misled him.”
Taking a swipe at the old man in a hurry, he went on to say: “This pattern, I am sure, will be repeated today. At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.”
He went on to mock Advani’s record as a Hindutva leader and home minister — mentioning in one breath the terrorist attack on Parliament, the destruction of Babri Masjid and the Gujarat riots which had all taken place under his watch. It was at this point that he deftly changed the direction of his attack, asking the Left to ponder over the decision to stand with the BJP because of the “miscalculations by their general secretary”.
Apart from the sharp political broadsides, the Prime Minister dwelt at length — as he has on many occasions before — on the multi-hued merits of the nuclear agreement, on the achievements of the UPA government in the area of social welfare and education, and on the government’s continued commitment to an “independent foreign policy.”
He ended on an emotional note, recalling the first 10 years of his life “in a village with no drinking water supply, no electricity, no hospital, no roads and nothing that we today associate with modern living.”
And, as though answering critics who have accused him of selling out to “US imperialism”, the Prime Minister said, “Sir, my conscience is clear that on every day that I have occupied this high office, I have tried to fulfil the dream of that young boy from that distant village. Whatever I have done in this high office I have done so with a clear conscience and the best interests of my country and our people at heart. I have no other claims to make.”
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