Alone at the Summit — page 2

Manmohan Singh has one particular attribute that marks him as the leader India has always needed and wanted. He's honest. In the 1980s, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi once observed that out of every rupee his government spent, only 12 paisa, or cents, reached the people. (That was before Rajiv himself got embroiled in a weapons-for-kickbacks scandal.) Today, antigraft watchdog Transparency International, in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, ranks India 83 out of 133 countries, on a par with Malawi and Romania, and stories about "scams" are the stock-in-trade of political reporters across the land. But the tales they tell about Singh are quite the opposite, stressing his integrity and humility. Columnist and novelist Khushwant Singh relates that he once lent his fellow Sikh thousands of dollars for his 1996 campaign for the Indian Parliament; when Singh lost, he returned the money, saying, "I didn't know you had given this. Please take it back." The New Delhi cocktail circuit is agog with stories of how Singh answers his own telephone; how he drives home daily for a simple vegetarian lunch with his wife, Gursharan Kaur; how, having promised Gandhi his silence when she first offered him the premiership, he let Kaur learn about his new post from the television; and how he has dispensed with the wailing, gun-toting police jeeps that usually announce a Prime Minister's progress through the streets of the capital. Fellow economist Professor Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, who has been a friend of Singh's since their days as undergraduates at the University of Cambridge, has his own favorite story. Last year, when Singh's daughter Amrit applied to Columbia for a doctoral fellowship, says Bhagwati, he "never even mentioned it to me." In other words, Singh refused to pull any strings. "He must be the only father in India who wouldn't make that call," says Bhagwati. "He's just a really good man."

In India, a man with such integrity can easily be dismissed as too nice for politics. "In 50 years," says Bhagwati, "I've never heard him say anything mean about anybody." Asked whether he can play rough, Singh replies: "I hope I'm firm enough without being nasty. I know where to draw the line." His press handlers deny a charisma problem but acknowledge that Singh's image needs hardening. Accordingly, last month Singh embarked on a publicity drive to try to show that he is "cool and polite, but there is steel, too," according to National Security Adviser and friend J.N. Dixit. Singh held a well-attended press conference, a normal event anywhere else in the world but unusual in India. His press office has been pushing a line proclaiming the emergence of a new "firm, assertive, confident" Singh, as the cover of Outlook newsmagazine declared this month.

And then there is the Incident of the File that was Slapped Rather Hard on the Desk. Last month, the leaders of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took to the Prime Minister's office a list of proposed changes to the national budget. Singh, who had watched the same leaders paralyze Parliament with protests and walkouts and kill any hope of a budget discussion, refused to accept it. Reports vary on what happened next. Singh may have dropped the opposition papers on the table or slammed them down or even tossed them back. Outraged BJP leaders immediately summoned the press and erupted with fury at Singh's bad manners. "In my 50 years of political life," blustered former Defense Minister George Fernandes in remarks that ran across the front pages for days, "I have never undergone such an experience." Singh's managers were delighted; suddenly their man had a temper. Still, not everyone is convinced by the make-over. "His people can try to dress him up, but he is just not assertive," says Ajai Sahni, director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. "It's just not in his character. And politics is not his forum."

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