The Silence of Manmohan Singh

‘’The Prime Minister should talk more.’’ This was the take of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Dr. Manmohan Singh’s lack of verbosity.

Dr. Singh does find himself in an unenviable predicament. In the political arena where oneupmanship is the mark of a man, the honourable prime minister’s verbal handicap is often seen as a disqualification.
Chidambaram tries to explain it away as the ‘style of the person.’ Well, the style has become a stigma now…

The academician Singh has been too long in the pell-mell of politics to be excused of not having sufficient time or opportunity to hone this skill.

It takes a man of gritty innards to stay in a position of power, in full public spotlight, and be anointed as a pliable man. So is honesty just an ornamental badge that he sports to hide his inadequacy ?
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To give him due credit, Mr. Singh has never been a politician. He never has contested a Lok Sabha election. That probably would have given him some exposure to the practise of political padreship, of the necessity of opening up and laying it thick and sleek on people.
Entry through the backdoor of Rajya Sabha has just reinforced his taciturn tendencies.

Once in the high office, the Big Momma of Congress has done all the politicking and stick-weilding for him. Manmohan Singh had just to contend with the last-mile of office-administration. The line between appearance and reality had been clearly etched.

In such a scenario the need to stand up and speak out again has been reduced to a minimum, going much with the personality of Mr. Singh.
Now that the heat of corruption has started to sear the party and its front-liners, the need for a more vocal leader has been felt and articulated. And if the leader is young , so much the better !!!
This then is the crux of the comments of Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh made in reference to the prime minister.