An ode to unexciting political competence – in an age of the showman leader

Eulogies for Jimmy Carter and Manmohan Singh highlight the overlooked power of principle-driven leadership.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

For those of us who attained political sentience only in the 2000s, this past week's wistful eulogising for two unshowy yet unassumingly pivotal national leaders of yesteryear has proved surprisingly illuminating.

The passing of these archetypal "quiet doers" – former United States president Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100, and former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh at age 92 – might not immediately stir millennials or Gen Zers, accustomed as we are to the totemic figures of today who double as social media stars and heads of government.

Yet the ongoing reflection by seasoned commentators on these men's understated competence feels especially timely as we near Jan 20, when Donald Trump – who has built his career far more on political theatre than substantive policy – returns to the White House.

Beneath this nostalgia lies a longing for a sober, managerial or technocratic style of leadership, rather than a brand of politics verging on reality TV.

It is also a climate in which Trump's showmanship – shrugging off political orthodoxy and principles of good governance – appears to be catching on among global political strivers.

In stark contrast, Mr Carter and Dr Singh, in their respective tenures as US president (1977–1981) and Indian prime minister (2004–2014), embodied the antithesis of spectacle-driven politics: They were dull but diligent and their true worth becomes clear only in hindsight.

Mr Carter – a peanut farmer turned one-term president, derided contemporaneously as a country bumpkin – was, as The New York Times columnist Nick Kristof puts it, a victim of "failure of discernment" among the commentariat, who failed to recognise he was motivated more by principle than raw politics.