Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao had a scholarly command of some half a dozen Indian and foreign languages but did not speak to his fellow citizens in any one of them. Many believe that this contributed not a little to his political downfall as he declined to take the people into confidence on key questions, Ayodhya being a good example. On this, he salvaged his reputation in considerable measure when he rendered a masterly speech in Parliament on India’s civilisational ethos, and the political, social, historical and philosophical underpinnings of Indian secularism.

But this came too late in the day to matter in electoral terms. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not in the same league when it comes to reticence, although it is a matter of chagrin that for months he kept up a stoical silence even as his government was being pilloried on runaway prices (which hurt the poor the most), and on corruption that began to take a toll at the Cabinet level and has now come to preface any discussion — informed or otherwise — on governance. At last Dr Singh went public after many months when he met a few newspaper editors on Wednesday. But has he spoken to the country?
In the soft interaction with editors, he asserted he was not a “lame duck” Prime Minister, that he enjoyed the confidence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi (to whom he made warm references) and the rest of the party, that he had a job to do as long as he remained in the PM’s chair, although he had little difficulty with younger people taking charge and would happily leave if his party asked him to. The PM had expressed much the same sentiments in February when he chose to have a chat with a few prominent television anchors. And yet, the sense would not abate that he was shying of taking the country into confidence.
Wednesday’s session with newspaper editors addressed the price issue only in passing when the PM said inflation would drop to about six per cent (from the current nine per cent) by March next year if international oil prices fell and other commodity prices did not rise. This does not count as reassurance. The government needs to intervene now, and its head was supposed to give some idea of the effective steps he might take to alleviate the conditions in which the vast majority of our population lives, who are now groaning under the weight of ever-rising prices. Similarly, the PM was expected to pronounce himself with authority on the institutional and constitutional dimensions of the silly — even dangerous — demands being made by some groups on the Lokpal question and black money. But the PM only said he was willing to submit himself at the personal level to the proposed Lokpal’s jurisdiction, but was being advised by his Cabinet colleagues that such a step might lead to political instability. This is regrettably sketchy as well as skittish. The country needs a more elaborate enunciation of the key issues at stake that might help lead the debate in the run-up to the introduction of a Lokpal Bill in Parliament.
It is evident that the Prime Minister seized the opportunity to be sharp on the media and the CAG — institutions which have been critical of the functioning of the UPA-2 government (fortunately he excluded the courts); although it has been repeatedly underlined that the PM”s own conduct has consistently been above suspicion. This is a pity. Dr Singh apparently intends to meet editors more often, but the way to go is to offer himself up for interrogation at frequent press conferences, and to address the substance of sensitive issues through public speeches, as leaders are wont to.