Alone at the Summit — page 3

According to Indian lore, temper is one thing Singh should have in spades. India's Sikhs are regarded by their compatriots as headstrong, quick to anger and the butt of a thousand jokes. Singh shatters that myth, although he is certainly a product of his upbringing. Sikhism, born 500 years ago as a reaction to the Hindu caste system, has a strong egalitarian streak. And Gah, a Sikh-run village perched on the edge of dusty ravines in what is now northern Pakistan, provides insight into Singh's politics. The future Prime Minister spent 15 years in Gah before his family fled to India during the partition of 1947. His former classmates recall the village as a tough but proudly self-sufficient place, with no roads, electricity or running water, and where community and teamwork cut across religious and class barriers. They say Singh was a quiet and studious boy who, conscious of the relative prosperity of his merchant father, shared dried apricots, peanuts and almonds in the village's two-room school. "That was the way, back then," says Mohammed Ali, 72. "Everyone helped each other."

For Singh, memories of his childhood are still sharp. "We had only a small primary school," he says. "It leaked, so when it rained we had a holiday. I saw a lot of poverty there. I know a lot of families who lost their dear ones to infectious diseases." Singh says his background instilled in him a desire to understand "why some countries are poor and some rich." Through a series of scholarships, he went on to study economics at Cambridge and Oxford before a career as an academic and technocrat. Gah continues to inform his beliefs. "The biggest problem of India is to get rid of chronic poverty and infectious disease, which still afflict millions and millions," he says, when asked for his policy priorities. The consensus on May's election result is that the right-wing BJP was thrown out of office on a wave of rural resentment at India's roaring but uneven, city-centric growth. Spurred by this mandate, Singh has committed his government to "reform with a human face."

But Singh is above all a pragmatist. He became Finance Minister in 1991 at a time of crisis: India was in danger of defaulting on its debt and had twice turned to the International Monetary Fund to bail it out. He accelerated the free-market reforms that would earn him a reputation as the father of India's economic growth. Lawrence Summers, now president of Harvard University, worked closely with then Finance Minister Singh when he was chief economist of the World Bank and a top U.S. Treasury official. "It's not that he has an ideological commitment to capitalism rather than socialism," Summers says. "If anything, the opposite. But he has a pragmatic attachment to the best way to get things done, and that, to my mind, made him one of the most important figures of the 1990s." Today Singh is focusing on modernizing India's decrepit and inefficient infrastructure through public-private partnerships, cutting state subsidies on utilities and attracting more foreign investment in an effort to spur that growth to his target 7-8% for the next five years. But he knows that he must temper liberalization so as to satisfy the rural poor, who have yet to benefit from trickle-down wealth, and his Communist allies in Parliament. After taking office, he quickly announced that profitable state companies would not be privatized and that there would be a new focus on agriculture.

This flexibility, plus his position in the middle of India's religious puzzle—he is a Sikh with a fondness for Urdu poetry—gives observers hope on Kashmir. In a situation in which rigid, competing territorial claims work against a settlement acceptable to both sides, the key thing is to keep talking so as to drain the heat from the issue. In this context, says the Institute for Conflict Management's Sahni, Singh is a "safer bet" than former BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was given to dramatic, inconsistent pronouncements. "Singh may inspire little excitement," says Sahni, "but what he puts on the table will be sustainable." Adds Brahma Chellaney, professor of security studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi: "What we're talking about is managing the problem, not solving it, and in that he's as good as anyone." In his interview with TIME, Singh was modest about his expectations for next week's meeting with Musharraf. "Getting to know each other is important," he said. "But we are willing to discuss all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, and find solutions rooted in ground realities."

On the Pakistani side of the border, some doubt Singh has the dynamism to be a dealmaker. A former militant says: "Any Indian concession to Pakistan over Kashmir would disturb India's domestic politics and may even threaten its breakup." Adds Humayun Gauhar, editor of Islamabad-based Blue Chip magazine: "Manmohan Singh won't be able to sell a solution. Whatever [it is], it will be unpopular, and you need a strong man to make unpopular decisions. He's not born to make history."

Is that judgment fair? Singh turns 72 this month, and National Security Adviser Dixit admits that Singh is feeling the strain from "working too hard." One friend says Singh told him he felt lonely and isolated in the Prime Minister's office. But at his press conference, Singh told reporters: "This misconception that I can be pressured into giving up is simply not going to materialize." Indeed, after a difficult start, there is a sense that Singh is quietly developing real stature. Summers predicts Singh's profile can only grow, adding that in the time they worked together, Singh gradually emerged as a unifying figure of trust. "There's winning the fight," Summers says, "and transcending the battle. Manmohan's way is more the second." Or, as friend Bhagwati puts it: "He rises above all the crap. He's not a typical politician at all." And that, India is beginning to realize, may be just what the country needs.

With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Karachi and Talat Hussein/Islamabad

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