For writers Nayantara Sahgal and Tarun J. Tejpal, the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, is a honourable man. But according to them, he has one big drawback. He does not have the confidence to speak out in a strong voice.
The writers were speaking on the topic ‘Media, Literature and Politics: The Cross Currents of Writing, Communication and Ideology in an Age of Instant Communication” at the Hay Festival on Friday.
The Sahithya Akademi award-winning Ms Nayantara Sahgal said Mr Manmohan Singh was a good man with a character nobody questions. The editor of Tehelka magazine said Mr Singh was personally clean.
“He was never caught doing anything bad. He is decent,” Mr Tejpal said. “But he does not have the eloquence to articulate the problems of the poor and the downtrodden. Leaders of an earlier era had the talent to at least say the right things,” he said.
Ms Nayantara Sahgal, in her soft aging voice, was more scathing. “A great leader should be able to communicate. The Prime Minister has not made his voice heard,” she said. “He is a good man with a character but doesn’t speak. A prime minister cannot be like that,” she added.
Both the writers lamented that the country did not have a “master narrative”.
Mr Tejpal presented a dystopian version of India. He recounted the manner in which the armed forces set upon the dalits, the increasing incidents of inhuman detentions and also the way the state brutalised the best of its citizens like Dr Binayak Sen and Iftikar Geelani.
“The state works for you only if you have not fallen foul of it,” he said and added: “I am not sanguine about the future of my country.”