By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, May 19 2004 (IPS)

The image that most residents of the national capital have of Manmohan Singh, slated to be India’s next prime minister,is that of a diminutive, turbaned man patiently steering his small car through a chaotic sea of sleek limousines, hulking buses and slow-moving pedicabs.

That image probably portrays best the soft-spoken economist who, as finance minister between 1991 and 1996, is credited with steering India’s overprotected economy – dominated by monopolistic business families and an inefficient public sector – through a difficult first phase of reforms.

‘Manmohanomics’ was blamed for the 1996 electoral defeat of the venerable Congress party, which had always styled itself as a pro-poor, socialist party ever since it assumed charge of the country in 1947 when India gained independence from British colonial rule.

But both the left-dominated United Front government which took over in 1996 and the right-wing, ultra-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which followed in 1998, only deepened and widened the reforms initiated by Singh.

Now, the ‘Good Doctor,’ as the newspaper headlines often describe Singh, partly in deference to his impressive academic credentials, is back in the driver’s seat – this time as prime minister after Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi declined the nomination.

Curiously enough, Singh’s installation in the top job has been made possible by a public angered by a pro-rich reforms regime run by the outgoing BJP. The ousted ruling party harped on a ‘Shining India’ election motto that boomeranged because the average voter felt excluded from the benefits of such reforms.

But clearly, both Singh and the Congress party itself are creatures that now have the wisdom and hindsight of 13 years of reforms at which governments at either end of the political spectrum have had a turn at running.

Moreover, the Congress party that Singh will be heading is a minority one that is heavily dependent for survival on support from the communist parties of the Left Front, which have emerged with more seats in parliament than ever before.

Singh will find himself constrained by a Common Minimum Programme, which the Left Front has insisted on as a condition for its crucial support. This is expected to seriously influence economic decisions in favour of farmers and the working classes.

But P Chidambaram, who succeeded Singh as finance minister in 1996 in the Left Front-supported United Front government and is tipped for the same job again in the new government, said Wednesday that communist concerns for farmers and the working classes were legitimate and could be worked out as in the past.

Not that either the Congress party or Singh need prompting on the plight of small farmers who form the backbone of India’s agricultural economy, but have borne the brunt of the reform process.

The phenomenon of Indian farmers committing suicide in droves has coincided with the reforms process. It is estimated that during the five years of BJP rule, at least 8,000 of them hanged themselves or consumed the deadly agricultural pesticides bought on loans that they were unable to repay.

Singh has himself repeatedly acknowledged the need to bring a ‘human face’ to the reform process, which has been particularly traumatic for India because of a sudden shift from long years of protectionism and policies favouring self-reliance.

Singh, who was born in 1932 in a rural village (Gah in what is now Pakistan), needs no lessons on the importance to the economy of taking the interests of farmers seriously.

The man acknowledged as the ‘father of Indian reforms’ criticised the last budget presented by the business-friendly BJP as ”a bunch of tokenisms that refuse to address real problems like the eradication of poverty and agricultural development”.

On the other hand, Singh has not hesitated to oppose a policy of providing free power to farmers, announced last week by the new Congress party provincial government in southern Andhra Pradesh state.

The announcement was made after the defeat of the aggressively pro-reform Telugu Desam Party (BJP), a regional ally of the BJP.

In his own words, Singh said what he really wanted to do was to ”release the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit which always existed in India through a credible structural adjustment programme”. After receiving the formal letter of invitation to form the new government from Indian President Abdul Kalam Wednesday evening, Singh pledged to build ”new opportunities for the poor and downtrodden to participate in the economic process”.

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