It was sad to see former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh being asked to depose before the courts for his alleged role in the infamous 2G scam that set about to slowly erode the foundations of the United Progressive Alliance government, helped by revelations of other acts of corruption, before it was ultimately routed in the general elections.
Singh is, by all accounts, an honourable man. But as prime minister, he had allocated the coal portfolio to himself. The magnitude of the fraud, and intention of the court, is to map out an audit trail of how accountable he was. Singh must subject himself to this introspection. He must prove his innocence.
Singh may have been misled, but as prime minister, the buck had to stop with him. The nature of Singh’s defence will ensure his exoneration and not his claims that he is innocent. The law must take its course and no one knows this better than Singh.
For all his honourable characteristics it appears that Singh is now paying the price for not being his own man while governing the country. Silence against political attack has always been the former prime minister’s quintessential response, but he is now being painfully reminded that it can be perceived as a weakness. In short, he has undermined himself.
As prime minister, Singh reserved an active morality for himself, but a passive morality towards the faults of others. He misread the potency of the powers at his disposal and this will be his lasting epitaph.
