The Accidental Prime Minister Quotes

“It was a line I heard Dr Singh repeat many years later in his modest office in”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“You are being foolish,’ Prebisch admonished Manmohan, but then added thoughtfully, ‘Sometimes in life it is wise to be foolish.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Even while he modestly called himself an ‘accidental prime minister’ he did not doubt that he could do the job, and do it better than the other senior leaders around Sonia.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“He held me back when I sought to project him during my time as his media adviser, saying, ‘I want my work to speak for me.’ Perhaps Dr Singh was nervous about projecting himself”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“will argue, in the coming chapters, that the Manmohan Singh of UPA-1 was not the ‘puppet PM’ that he came to be seen as in UPA-2.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Madam, it is best to leave when everyone asks you why rather than when!”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Why, I was asked, was UPA-1 more successful than UPA-2? Why had the PM’s image taken such a beating? What”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“is natural for a political leader to be either admired or hated, but a politician should never become an object of ridicule.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“commenting on why those once in power write memoirs, ‘is a substitute for the authority they once commanded by virtue of their position but now miss.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Not only do I not know all sides of the truth, I do not even know how many sides the truth has.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Many countries, including developed market economies, justified farm subsidies on such social grounds. A debt waiver was a subsidy, and a public good.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“The first thing I did the next morning was to go across to RCR and ask him why Surjeet had come to call on him. He merely said, ‘Montek will be deputy chairman.’ But his smile, exuding both mischief and triumph, gave the game away. One wily Sardar had secured the support of another wily Sardar to get a third one on board.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Ye jabr bhi dekha hai, taareeq ki nazron ne / Lamhon ne khata ki thi, sadiyon ne saza payi’ (Much injustice / has been seen in the saga of history / When for a mistake made in a moment we are punished for centuries).”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“It’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Dr Singh’s Independence Day speech would always be written in Urdu,”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“ordinance. During UPA-1, it had been forced to defend the PM even when it did not agree with his actions, to ensure the”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“But his opinion that Sonia should enter politics was also based on his conviction that without a Nehru-Gandhi family member at the top, the Congress party would splinter and wither away. This view was also encouraged by members of the Delhi durbar—a ‘power elite’, to use sociologist C.Wright Mill’s term, comprising civil servants, diplomats, editors, intellectuals and business leaders who had worked with or been close to the regimes of Nehru, Indira and Rajiv. Some of them inhabited the many trusts and institutions that the Nehru-Gandhi family controlled. They had all profited in one way or another, over the years, from their loyalty to the Congress’s ‘first family’.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Victor Hugo: ‘No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“While he would try from time to time to improve his delivery in public speaking and TV appearances, this never came naturally to him. Even a smile before TV cameras, a basic requirement for a politician, never came easily to him and I had to often get close to him, sometimes worrying the SPG guards, standing just a step away, to whisper in his ear, ‘Smile’.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Political analysts and reporters who skimmed the surface only saw Dr Singh as ‘Sonia’s puppet’. Those who had a deeper knowledge of the power play within the wider coalition knew that Dr Singh had the backing of the coalition partners, some of whom were more loyal to him than to his own party leaders. Sonia chose him, no doubt, but once appointed, he became the UPA’s prime minister. Dr Singh was acutely conscious of the fact that he headed a coalition and not just a monolithic party, and made sure that he maintained the best of relations with all coalition partners.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Pranab was never so transparent either in expressing his disagreement or support. After returning from an important visit to Washington DC, Pranab chose not to brief the PM for three days. He had gone to see Sonia Gandhi but had not sought an appointment with Dr Singh. On the third day, I asked Dr Singh what had transpired at Pranab’s meetings with President Bush and Condoleezza Rice. ‘I don’t know,’ was his plaintive reply.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit from the new order. This lukewarmness arises partly from the fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have the experience of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him half-heartedly, so that between them he runs a great danger.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“Ostensibly, the most important governance reform was supposed to be the Right to Information (RTI) Act that aimed to impose greater accountability on the government. It was an NAC initiative. Several senior and retired civil servants cautioned Dr Singh against the RTI, worrying that rather than expose corruption and sloth in government, it would sap initiative and encourage officers to pass the buck. The jury is still out on whether or not RTI was a wise move and what its impact on governance has been. Has it made the government more transparent and accountable or has it made civil servants risk averse and unwilling to take difficult decisions? In UPA-1, when there was considerable euphoria over the RTI Act, few would have imagined that analysts would hold the RTI Act responsible for at least some of the so-called ‘policy paralysis’ that UPA-2 came to be charged with.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“On one such occasion, when Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik, then an ally of the BJP, called on him and sought a financial package for Orissa on the same lines as what was given to Bihar, a state ruled at the time by a UPA ally, Dr Singh delivered an uncharacteristic snub, saying, ‘Does money grow on trees?”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“The Manmohan Singh government has won for India the keys to unshackle its nuclear programme from the unfair restrictions it has been subjected to for the past 33 years.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“I submit to you for your consideration the idea that the most enduring engagement of a people with the world is in the realm of ideas and the idea we must engage the world through is the “idea of India”—the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.The idea that even as nations may clash, cultures and civilizations can coexist.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“The days when the Planning Commission was composed entirely of subject experts were long gone. Various political and social quotas had now to be filled. North, south, scheduled caste, woman, minority. In the era of coalitions, every constituent political party wanted to name a member. For the PM, himself a former deputy chairman, the Planning Commission had become the place where he could park a trusted aide.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh

“When I would suggest a minister’s name for a better portfolio or an elevation in rank he would, every now and then, say what he felt about the person. Sometimes, he would just make a face that conveyed disapproval. Over time, I realized that there were few members of his council of ministers that he truly valued as administrative assets. His constant refrain was that there was a paucity of administrative talent in the Congress and among the allies.”
― Sanjaya Baru, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh