World's Most Powerless Person

The American President is easily the world’s most powerful person although Osama Bin Laden is giving him a run for his money. But, do you wonder who the world’s most powerless person is? For obvious reasons, I am keeping ordinary citizens like you and me out of this race. And to make the search meaningful, I’ll limit my quest to national leaders, and in that, to people in positions that at least have a semblance of power. This will automatically eliminate choices like the President of India, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Iraq and the likes.

You should have guessed the winner by now. Yes, it’s our dear Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh. I don’t think there’s even a close second. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Singh. On the contrary, I believe he’s the kind of Prime Minster we’ve been desperately searching for. However, a Prime Minster also needs power, and that is where Mr. Singh lacks.

Mr. Singh was not the preferred choice for this position. In fact, he was never in contention until Mr. Sharad Pawar caused a furor over Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. Mr. Singh has Mr. Pawar to thank as much as Mrs. Gandhi for his elevation as the leader of Republic India. Sadly, Mr. Singh was not chosen for his financial acumen or political wisdom. It was his image of being a soft-liner that won him the job, and on top of that, I don’t think he had any say over who got into his Cabinet. Even with that, if the Congress had secured a majority in Lok Sabha by itself, Mr. Singh would have had control over how his Government is run, despite Mrs. Gandhi holding the remote that is. Now, he has to work his way with the likes of Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, and some of the political allies and supporters of the UPA don’t even belong in the same country. Yes, I refer to the Communist parties. The CPM and CPI have nothing in common with the Congress except their shared hatred of the BJP: Good enough to win an election and form a Government, but hardly sufficient to formulate progressive policies. (It is some consolation that Buddadeb Bhattacharya, Chief Minister of West Bengal, subscribes to a more realistic view of the industrial situation in India.)

So, Mr. Singh finds himself in an unenviable position, where he has the power to sign any law that he wants, but the Congress has tied his hands and the Left keeps hiding the pen.