The Making of the Prime Minister

Once upon a time, there was a prime minister in India who was a primetime embodiment of un- freedom. An honourable man and a dutiful servant of the system, who was made chief administrator by the imperial decree of the Empress Dowager of 10 Janpath. The chosen one owed his luck to the benevolence of the maximum leader, who, in a choreographed melodrama of renunciation in Parliament, stunned courtiers with her “no”. In power, he was a man fettered, as the Kremlin in India’s capital exercised its veto whenever he attempted any reform. INDIATODAY, AUGUST4, 2008