PM Manmohan Singh's Independence Day speeches: UPA-1 delivers, but UPA-2 meanders

On Thursday, prime minister Manmohan Singh delivered what is possibly his last Independence Day speech — there is no certainty because of his recent ambiguous statement of seeking another term — from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Singh has always been a man of few words, tone deaf to calls to speak more often. So his speech on August 15, even with the sense of occasion, gains an extra measure of importance. But the speech was, to put it charitably, flat.


Singh cannot be faulted for not trying though. He finally, after nine long years, remembered his mentor PV Narasimha Rao who was PM when he delivered his famous budget speech on July 24, 1991, heralding India’s economic liberalisation. (That, by the way, remains arguably Singh’s only spirited speech. Remember how he paraphrased in parliament Victor Hugo: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”?) Singh acknowledged on Thursday he was able to successfully negotiate a major economic crisis in the 1990s thanks to Rao’s leadership. The Congress suffers from amnesia when it comes to Rao.

India again faces a crisis, many say we are again stuck at 1991, and Singh got a chance to return to his pet subject: growth. Maybe he had no choice because of fears that growth may slip below 5%. Even so, Singh resorted to smart math: averaging the past nine years to show an impressive growth figure of 7.9%, the highest in any decade. We will soon know how the electorate has received this interpretation.

Here, we compare the agenda he set in the first Independence Day speech of UPA 1 (2004) with the results he talked about in the last one of that government (2008); and similarly the first Independence Day address of UPA 2 (2009) with the one he delivered on Thursday.