How Manmohan Singh steered a coalition government successfully

So be it,” said prime minister Manmohan Singh in a 2007 interview when the left parties threatened to withdraw support to his government over the India-US nuclear deal. With that brief statement, Singh sent a powerful message. The left eventually withdrew support, but the government survived, thanks to the Samajwadi Party, which provided outside support. The United Progressive Alliance government retained power in the 2009 general elections, giving rise to a new slogan: “Singh is king”.

Singh’s image as a middle-class hero―a humble sardar who overcame adversity through scholarship―and India’s rising global stature endeared him to voters. The Congress won 206 seats, surpassing the 200-seat mark for the first time since 1991, when it had won 244 seats following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The Congress has not crossed the 200-seat mark since its 2009 triumph.

A decade earlier, Singh had contested his first and only election from the South Delhi constituency in 1999, losing to the BJP’s Vijay Kumar Malhotra by a margin of 30,000 votes, partly because of internal “sabotage” by his party. Days before voting, Congress leaders blamed the RSS for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. This was seen as a means to absolve the party of the blame. The voters, many of them Sikhs who were willing to support Singh, apparently had a change of heart at the last moment, even as RSS activists actively campaigned against him.

In the two prior Lok Sabha elections from the same seat, Congress candidates Kapil Sibal and Ajay Maken had also faced defeats, losing to BJP’s Sushma Swaraj by over one lakh votes. This indicates how close Singh was to victory. Interestingly, riding on the momentum of Singh’s victory in 2009, the Congress won the South Delhi seat for the first time in 25 years. It was also the last time the party managed to win the constituency.

Singh was not your traditional politician, yet his 10-year tenure marked a significant chapter in India’s 77 years of independence―a period that saw the rise of a technocrat-politician focused on delivery. Under his leadership, transformative social welfare schemes were initiated, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Right to Education, the Right to Food Security and, to some extent, the Right to Information. If his resoluteness in getting the nuclear deal signed marked the high point of his tenure, these rights-based schemes will be his enduring legacy.

Singh’s success lay in his ability to engage with diverse opinions and steer a coalition government―a task requiring considerable political acumen. He brought integrity, courtesy, transparency and old-world humility to the PMO, standing apart in the long era of Indian politics dominated by political machinations, confident body language and the public image of decisive leaders crafted through bold slogans. The traditional political class saw him as an interloper who made it to the top with Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s blessings. Hence, there was constant pushback from the old guard.

Instead of countering criticism with aggression, Singh often responded with silence, where Urdu couplets often provided an outlet. One of his memorable lines was: “Hazaaron jawabon se acchi hai meri khamoshi, na jaane kitne sawalon ki aabroo rakhi (My silence is better than a thousand answers; it preserves the dignity of countless questions).”

In today’s political climate, dominated by instant reactions and blistering counterattacks, such restraint might seem outdated. His second term coincided with the rise of social media and an increasingly vocal media scene. The very policies Singh had championed created an ecosystem that thrived on his economic reforms but operated by amplifying the loudest voices, often discarding old-world decorum.

He refused to write his memoirs, keeping the tumultuous decades of Indian polity since his years as economic adviser to the finance minister and his time at the country’s top post under wraps. When his press adviser wrote a book on his PMO years, Singh termed it a “stab in the back”.

Singh’s philosophy―“my work will speak for itself”―became anachronistic in an era where good work demands aggressive promotion. Yet, his legacy endures as a testament to quiet, dignified leadership in a world of boisterous politics. As the headlines and outpourings of praise for the man showed, in his death, Singh had become more popular.

For most of his tenure, Singh was a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam. He was the first from the country’s minority, and that, too, from Sikhs, who constitute less than two per cent of the population, to become prime minister. He didn’t wear his identity on his sleeve; in his own words, he was committed to liberal and secular principles.

But he did what no other prime minister had done before―he apologised for the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. “I have no hesitation in apologising not only to the Sikh community but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood and what is enshrined in our Constitution,” he said during an intervention in the Rajya Sabha in 2005 on the action taken report on the Nanavati Commission. “I am not standing on any false prestige. On behalf of our government, on behalf of the entire people of this country, I bow my head in shame that such a thing took place.”

This singular act helped in the healing process for the community, which had nurtured angst at being denied justice, and even helped ease their animosity against the grand old party. Subsequently, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, too, echoed Singh’s views.

What remains an ignominious record of Singh’s tenure was the long list of scams implicating his ministers, which propelled anti-corruption protests in the country, helmed by Anna Hazare. The Nirbhaya case and the protests that followed marked another low point. Singh withdrew into a shell, and let his ministers handle the crisis. It would have helped had the prime minister stamped his authority and been more vocal. He did “force” minister A. Raja to resign following the telecom scam, but the damage was done. Years later, the “notional loss” theory, which was propagated to discredit his regime, was rejected by the courts.

The last years of the UPA saw a rise in momentum of the protests against the government, with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi offering himself as a direct contrast to Singh’s style and tenor. Arvind Kejriwal pounded the Congress with his aggressive hard-sell of honest politics. Modi redefined the image of a prime minister, always on the move, not shying away from challenging the status quo and engaging in aggressive campaigning during the polls, thus marking a new era in the country’s polity.

Modi was the first prime minister to be born in independent India, while Singh carried the sensitivities of an undivided nation. He longed to visit his birthplace in Pakistan, but owing to the inimical politics between the two nations, he chose not to―a regret that many of his generation still carry.

In his death, Singh’s family chose to “celebrate” his life (so read the memorial service invite by his family), showing that it was a life well lived.

MARUTI 800, OLD-SCHOOL FDS

BY SHUBHANGI SHAH

Despite having the best of cars, Singh preferred his modest Maruti 800, Asim Arun, a former IPS officer-turned BJP politician, revealed in a post on X. Arun was part of Singh’s security team for three years starting 2004.

And, the man who unleashed the stock market revolution in India never owned any shares. All his investments were in good old fixed deposits in the State Bank of India.

THE BLUE TURBAN

A trimmed beard, big glasses and a light-blue turban―that is how Singh was seen and will be remembered. “The colour light blue is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head,” he said while being honoured with a doctorate of law in 2006. He also shared how it served as a reminder of his time at Cambridge university when his friends would affectionately call him “Blue Turban”.