Portrait of a Prime Minister

Perhaps the hottest subject for an Indian biographer, Manmohan Singh is proving to be a challenge for his Boswells.

Manmohan Singh
A Profile
Satish Yadav
Hope India Publications
2004
Biography
Price: Rs 350
Pages: 176
ISBN: 81-7871-054-4
Hardcover

HT Image

Perhaps the hottest subject for biographer, as well as one on whom there is perhaps the scantiest amount of information, Manmohan Singh is proving to be a challenge for his Boswells. For this decidedly unassuming prime minister has led a fairly low-key life as well, despite being credited with India's turn toward economic reforms in the early 1990s.

The book provides a range of information about its subject. However most of this is already in the public realm. The major contribution seems to be put it all together. The book claims not to be definitive biography but an 'interim study'.

The book chronologically traces the life of Dr Singh, providing some interesting details of his childhood. Though his years at Cambridge find brief mentioned, there is precious little about him as an economist, not even his area of expertise during his academic years.

Though there is a description of his years as Finance Minister during PV Narasimha Rao's Prime Ministership, most of the book concentrates on the recent events leading up to his becoming the Prime Minister.

The text of the book is extremely loose, full of spelling mistakes and inconsistencies. Even the name of his wife is spelt in different ways.

While the 'Chronology of Important Events' is useful, the other appendices seem to be more for taking the word count to a certain number than anything else - the main text is from page 13 to 85, while the appendices occupy pages 89 to 173!

Most of the photographs are political and repetitive. There is just one photograph of him with his family - that too just his wife and grandchild.

But what is perhaps disappointing aspect of the book is the lack of any first person account by the subject himself. There is not even an interview with him, and the only time we get to read Manmohan Singh himself is in the last appendix, which has his speech to the nation delivered on June 24, 2004 is reproduced.

Surely Manmohan Singh deserves better.