A PM who kept his words few and work eloquent

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. How will I be judged by history? Would this question have crossed Manmohan Singh’s mind? Maybe. That was why he once said, “History would judge me more kindly." He was right.

Look at the newspaper headlines of the last three days. They are all filled with praise for him. Social media is replete with posts and videos related to him.

For a society quick to forget even its greatest luminaries, such respect for a person who faded into political oblivion a decade ago is rare. The society will continue to respect the late former prime minister’s work. I’ll give you a few examples to prove my point.

One instance is from a time the Manmohan Singh government was considering a nuclear deal with the US. The leftist parties, whose support was vital to the government’s survival then, opposed the deal. They threatened to withdraw support if the government went ahead with the deal.

And the PM seemed to concede when he told the media: “Not all our wishes need to be realized, at times we have to step back for the greater good." But in reality, Singh’s withdrawal was tactical. His party, the Congress, had been in secret talks with Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party had enough members in parliament to save the government from falling even if the Left withdrew support. The government also held hectic parleys with the US to finalize the deal.

Singh revealed his intentions during a flight to Japan. We asked him if he would discuss the nuclear deal with the president of the US when he met him in Japan. He said, “Sure." We then asked him what would happen if the Left stood firm on withdrawing its support to government.