Voice of the Mind

There’s a scene in the famous TV sitcom Friends: Ross, an affable yet mildly goofy character gets into a very embarrassing situation. He has to say something to save his face yet he is shocked and tongue tied. His mind keeps shouting at him to ‘say something’ and after a few very uncomfortable minutes of silence, he opens his mouth, only to utter an even more embarrassing gaffe. His mind resignedly tells him, ‘Actually, you shouldn’t have said anything.’

No other analogy comes closer to explain what our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has done in his recent press conference. After weeks of remaining silent, being pulled apart by the media, by the opposition parties, by the so-called civil society representatives, and well, even the courts, Singh decided to break his silence. He called for a press conference, not the one in a typical sense but a cosy téte-a-téte with a select group of editors. And then he made that mistake: he spoke.

His first gaffe: He joined the other gang of Congressmen in slamming the CAG for acting ‘out of their mandate’. He stated that CAG breached the constitution by revealing their audit reports to the media, something which has ‘never been done and therefore is unprecedented and condemnable’. The very next day, The Hindu helpfully pointed out that not only that it has been done before – that the CAG have briefed the media – but when challenged in the similar fashion, such behaviour has even been ratified by the courts.

Then, he expressed ‘deep concern’ about the black money issue but openly admitted his inability to do anything by stating that he had ‘no magic wand’. Within a couple of days, what’s probably the worst indictment from the Supreme Court (and certainly not the first), the bench fired the government appointment panel for going too slow on the black money issue and set up its own panel.

Thirdly, and perhaps the most horrendous one, PM made a sneering comment about the people of Bangladesh. This comment is not even fit to be repeated here. This is the kind of remark that some people make in some careless drawing room conversations. The fact that somebody on the stature and calibre of PM could make such a remark (albeit off the record) is extremely disturbing and highly concerning. This too he had to do just weeks before his official visit to Bangladesh. The media sincerely kept the remark to themselves. But this was published, of all the places, in the PMO’s website. All hell broke loose but, even after this became public and received immense protest from across the border, it took almost 30 hours for this faux pas to be removed from the site.
Off or on the record, that remark has shattered what remained of the faint resemblance of statesman-like image that our PM managed to carry so far. It has been, like a snake’s de-skinning process, wearing off his face slowly one layer after another with every fiasco. The recent press-meet unveiled the last layer of dermis and thereby has fully revealed the highly shallow and pathetic person living inside. I remember long ago an email chain doing the rounds boasting about Mr Singh being the most educated head of state in the world. It turns out he is also the least responsible and least scrupulous.

On second thoughts, the Friends analogy is a bit unfair. Despite his hilarious accidents, Ross is essentially a conscientious person that remembers to obey even an empty queue. And hence his conscience speaks to him chiding him for his embarrassing blunders. As it turns out, Manmohan Singh lacks even that essential element, only proving that he is actually nothing but yet another seedy politician. I doubt his mind has a voice.