Devaluing Death of an Unsung Singh

When obituary becomes opprobrium, history takes a step back. The malicious mudslinging against Manmohan Singh, who passed away last week at 92, by political pygmies and self-serving sycophants exposed all that is wrong with Indian public life.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

When obituary becomes opprobrium, history takes a step back. The malicious mudslinging against Manmohan Singh, who passed away last week at 92, by political pygmies and self-serving sycophants exposed all that is wrong with Indian public life. The soft-spoken and unassuming Singh, who served as prime minister for a decade, is suddenly being spotlighted by both friends and foes.

Those who dismissed him as Sonia Gandhi's spineless camp follower are inventing new adjectives for his stellar achievements and personal humility. For them, he was the role model of global leaders and a super-economist of international celebrity. Meanwhile, BJP & Co, who rarely missed a chance to ridicule Singh, flooded the media with tributes to his magnanimity, credibility and desirability among all communities, castes and religion. Singh has become king—but only after his death.

The vituperative verbal volleys between the ruling party and the opposition resemble a political badminton game where the dead dignitary is the shuttlecock. Sadly, even before Singh's body was moved from his residence to the AICC headquarters, he became a ceremonial trophy which everyone wanted to own—though only in spirit—so that they could grow their political capital.

The Congress, which conferred on him almost 10 posts from central government secretary to prime minister, saw his bier as the bed of reincarnation to revive its oxidized image of a party without a credible, respectable leader. It invoked him as its gift to the nation.

Within 24 hours, he acquired a status taller than Jawaharlal Nehru's. The entire Gandhi parivar turned up in full force at the cremation.