Dr Manmohan Singh remains the only member of a minority to be Prime Minister of India. At the time of his Prime Ministership (2004-2014), his being a Sikh could be seen as him being almost a Hindu. Now, however, after a decade by his successor, hardline Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, he must be counted as a member of a minority which the BJP considers, along with Jains and Buddhists, as a sort of wrongheaded offshoot from the Santan Dharma which they propound. Dr Singh, who was P.V. Narasimha Rao’s Finance Ministerfrom 1991 to 1996, is supposed to the architect of the liberalising policy which made India an attractive destination for foreign investment. Though he left active politics a decade ago, he plunged back in with a letter to Punjabi voters which was an appeal to them to vote for his party, the Congress, but more an appeal to them not to vote for the BJP.
The issue he chose to raise, the Agniveer Scheme, whereby recruitment to the armed forces would first be through a four-year commitment, was one to which he is linked not just by being a member of a community which has traditionally sought employment in the armed forces, but also by his birth and childhood in Chakwal, a traditional recruiting ground of the British Raj. The Agniveer Scheme is being seen as another measure adding to the discontent created the the Modi government’s clash with mostly Sikh farmers, which has led to a revival of the Khalistan movement which had caused Dr Singh’s party so much grief.
It was perhaps inevitable that Dr Singh would reject Mr Modi’s claims that Congress intended to give India over to the Muslims. As Prime Minister, he hardly did anything that could be seen as deviating from the Congress’ policy towards Kashmir, Muslims or Pakistan. True, the persecution of Muslims was not as brutal or systematic as under the BJP. However, though Dr Singh was a Sikh whose party was headed by a naturalized Italian, his Cabinet, his parliamentary majority, was overwhelmingly Hindu, and he could hardly do anything to alienate them. At the advanced age of 92, he is still a committed Congressite, but his intervention shows there are no great issues at stake in the current Indian election, and even in the unlikely event that Mr Modi is turfed out of office, India will continue to regard Pakistan as its main regional rival.
