Govt fumes as US paper calls PM a tragic figure

In yet another round of the PMO vs Press slugfest, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office got into a wrangle with the Washington Post on Wednesday after the US daily published a sharply critical article on the Indian leader, the Congress party and India itself. 

    In a scathing dispatch from New Delhi under the headline 'India's 'silent' prime minister becomes a tragic figure', the paper's India correspondent Simon Denyer wrote that the "image of the scrupulously honourable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government". 
    A furious government has sought an apology from the American paper.Washington Post rejects demand for apology 
Washington/New Delhi: Taking umbrage over the article on PM Manmohan Singh, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni asked for an apology from the Washington Post for lowering the dignity of the office of the prime minister. 
    "More and more, he has become a tragic figure in our history," the article quoted political historian Ramachandra Guha as saying, while describing him as a man fatally handicapped by his "timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty". Critics are saying the shy, softspoken 79-year-old is in danger of going down in history as a failure, it reported. 
    The story evidently rubbed the PMO and the Congress party the wrong way after it was relayed and amplified widely on social media and television. Taking exception to the scathing language, which essentially came from quotes by critics, I&B minister Soni demanded an apology from the daily. "How can a US daily take the matter so lightly and publish something about the prime minister of another country? I will speak to the ministry of external affairs and the government will seek an apology from the daily," she said. 
    Government circles mistakenly thought they had received one when the paper's India correspondent Simon Denyer apologized for a technical breakdown of the paper's website that prevented the PMO from rebutting the article. 
    Denyer subsequently rejected the demand for an apology, saying he stood by the story. "After all, it's mild compared to what is in the Indian press all the time," he tweeted. He acknowledged that the article did not have the PM's side of the story but said he had contacted the PMO for an interview and it was repeatedly denied. This is not the first time that the Indian PMO, whether of the Congress party or the opposition BJP, has had problems with foreign journalists and their reporting on the Indian leadership. A recent Time magazine article describing Singh as an "'underachiever" did not go down well with the PMO. 
    Nearly a decade back, another Time magazine journalist was hounded out after he wrote a piece describing then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's failinghealth and alcohol intake under the headline 'Asleep at the Wheel?' The NDA response was widely criticized in the media as an overreaction, and the PMO-Washington Post tiff seems to be eliciting the same reaction. 
    Denyer though said in a tweet that "no threats were issued from their side, no apology was offered from mine. Stand by story". 
    In fact, the article was critical of not just the prime minister but also the country's overall inertia and decline. "'The story of Singh's dramatic fall from grace in his second term in office and the slow but steady tarnishing of his reputation has played out in parallel with his country's decline on his watch," it said. 
    "As India's economy has slowed and as its reputation for rampant corruption has reasserted itself, the idea that the country was on an inexorable road to becoming a global power has increasingly come into question,"it went on. 
    But the PM was apportioned a major share of the blame. "Under Singh, economic reforms have stalled, growth has slowed sharply and the rupee has collapsed. But just as damaging to his reputation is the accusation that he looked the other way and remained silent as his cabinet colleagues filled their own pockets,"Denyer wrote. 
    The story also quoted Singh's former media advisor Sanjaya Baru as saying, "In the process, he (Singh) transformed himself from an object of respect to one of ridicule and endured the worst period in his life." But Baru said Denyer had spoken to him several months ago, did not ask if he could be quoted and had rehashed aquote from an interview in another magazine.