THERE is merit in the Congress’ criticism of the book on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh written by his former media adviser, insofar as accusations of it being self-serving and aimed at personal gain are concerned. Certainly, the “insights” Mr Sanjaya Baru offers on the power equation between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister are curiously timed, not the least because it has been abundantly clear for some time that Mr Singh is serving out his last days in office. The public flogging of a horse on its last legs by its former syce would seem therefore an act of unbridled cruelty.

But let us restrict ourselves to the thrust of Mr Baru’s “revelations” which appear to be that, first, Sonia Gandhi’s renunciation of office in 2004 was a political charade and not the act of sacrifice it was projected to be; second, that the PM’s powers were subservient to and circumscribed by the president of his party who wielded authority in government; third, that the PMO was controlled by officials placed there by Ms Gandhi and who reported to her, and that finally Mr Singh refused to quit even when he realised he had lost all vestiges of control over what was thought to be his government.

Like many others in New Delhi and elsewhere, we have always believed that Mr Singh was a puppet prime minister controlled by Ms Gandhi. Unlike many others, we said so from the beginning.

In March 2005, in the wake of a crisis in Jharkhand an editorial headlined ‘India needs a PM’ had said: “A puzzling aspect of the imbroglio surrounding the shows, of strength and duplicity, in Jharkhand is the near absence from the scene of a man we call and would like to believe is our Prime Minister.

Where, pray, does Mr Manmohan Singh stand? After all, in the Westminster model of democracy we chose to give ourselves, it is the Prime Minister who must accept credit and blame for the triumphs and failures of the system.

Quite apart from the questions that are within the province of the Congress’ party apparatus, there are serious and Constitutional issues that are the preserve of the government of the day. It is not for the party to decide if the Governor acted in haste or worse, or whether he thus deserves censure or recall.

It is for the government to make this call, and for Mr Singh to assume he has no role to play in a political situation is unacceptable … For the Prime Minister to have responsibility without power is as unacceptable as it is for Mrs Sonia Gandhi to wield power without responsibility … It is not nearly enough to say that Mrs Gandhi relinquished the Prime Ministership; that, as she was at pains to point out at the time, was the call of her own conscience. The flip side cannot be that having spurned office she now be allowed free run of the government.”

Mr Baru, as the media adviser to the PM, did not react.

When in November 2005, Natwar Singh was moved from the external affairs ministry to minister without portfolio and the prime minister took charge of the Foreign Office, we had commented: “Necessity may well have forced on the government a compromise that is not entirely unwelcome by making Mr Manmohan Singh assume charge of the Foreign office. In a dispensation where both policy and crisis management are handled by the Congress president, finally the Prime Minister has something substantial to do.”

This was a pointed jibe but Mr Baru as the media adviser held his peace.

When there was a cabinet reshuffle in January 2006, this newspaper began its editorial headlined “Frothy Shake-Up” with these words, “For an event that was discussed for months before it happened, Sonia Gandhi’s reshuffle of Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet was an uninspiring exercise.”

Mr Baru was the media adviser but chose not to react.

In March 2006, when Ms Gandhi resigned her parliamentary seat in the wake of the badly botched office-of-profit issue that she had orchestrated, I had written an article headlined “Inner Voice — Another Sacrifice or Plain Self-Interest?” It said: “And the principle reality of Congress rule today is that the party and government are controlled — totally and completely — by Mrs Gandhi. She has the ultimate say on appointments, removals, decisions to do or not to do, policy formulation and plan execution.

The Prime Minister and his Council serve at her pleasure, and when occasionally one of them is forced to resign — remember a man named Natwar Singh — it is to her they go with their resignations.”

Neither the Prime Minister nor his media adviser reacted. In their defence it must be said and emphatically that they were not required to do so. Without feigning modesty it must equally be conceded that perhaps in Mr Baru’s view this newspaper was not important enough to merit attention.

The difference between what we had maintained all along — Mr Singh’s position was akin to that of a spouse without conjugal rights — and what Mr Baru now states is that the first was our perception, while the second is presented as fact. And if the fact is that Mr Baru knew in 2008 or earlier what he has written now, his silence underwrote the continuing exercise of extra-constitutional authority by Ms Gandhi, indeed its endorsement in 2009 by an electorate ignorant of this newspaper’s fulminations.

If Narendra Modi becomes PM and one day the despotic monster some people believe he will be, Mr Baru might even be asked why he didn’t quit in 2008 on the principle of being unable to serve a man who was master of nothing, for had he done so events might have unfolded differently. For instance, L. K. Advani might have wheezed past the post in 2009 and Mr Modi might have been chewing the cud in Gujarat.

After the death of my predecessor, C. R. Irani, a few journalists had published articles and in one case even a book pillorying him. They were entitled to their views, but would have deserved respect for them had they possessed the gumption to write what they did when the man was alive. Mr Baru’s treatise on the accidental, soon-to-be former PM falls almost in the same category. It kicks a man when he is down, if not out. It can only be self-serving. But there is a rider.

In the Byzantine intrigues of modern-day India there is one other possibility that must be considered. Could the crack of the syce’s whip be aimed at muffling the final whinny of a tormented horse too scared to buck?

—By arrangement with The Statesman-Asian News Network.