The report cards that Manmohan Singh received throughout his academic career were all excellent. His performance as a finance minister would also fetch him an alpha from the most unbiased examiners. But it will be difficult to give him such unqualified good grades for his achievements as India’s prime minister. One reason for this is perhaps the fact that as the head of a coalition government, he is not the complete master of his own fate. Notwithstanding this overall constraint, as prime minister he cannot escape the credit or otherwise for what has been done and not done in the last four years. There is first the credit for survival. In 2004, nobody quite thought that the United Progressive Alliance, an odd coalition supported from the outside by a formation on its own ideological trip, would quite stay the distance. The UPA government has now come round the bend to enter the last lap.

Looking back, Mr Singh may well wonder at the irony that the economy is his principal headache. Both reforms and growth have slowed down. Many would argue that the pace of the reforms under Mr Singh, the prime minister, has been noticeably slower than what it was under Mr Singh, the finance minister. The slowdown in growth may have global dimensions, but it is not totally unrelated to the inertia that has become embedded in the economic reforms programme. Of more immediate concern, of course, is inflation, especially with elections in many states round the corner, and general elections not too far down the road. While the predicted good monsoon might lower inflation levels, high prices may have taken their political toll. What is clear is that the economy is still not sufficiently insulated from politics even after more than 15 years of liberalization.

The most important initiative that Mr Singh took as prime minister was the pushing forward of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Yet the deal seems to be floundering, and for no want of trying on Washington’s part. Mr Singh is once again shackled by the appa- rent priorities of coalition politics. The Left parties are quite clearly holding Mr Singh’s government at ransom by their threat of withdrawal of support should the government sign the deal. Mr Singh seems to be strangely unwilling to call the Left’s bluff.

This unwillingness is a pointer to what has emerged as Mr Singh’s most critical weakness. There is a failure to stand up and carry out one’s beliefs. Mr Singh often conveys the impression that he is not in control and that he is allowing matters to drift or to be determined by other people. Goodness is not always the best virtue of a leader. On the promise of Mr Singh’s prime ministership has fallen the shadow of his personality, and the consequent inability to call the shots in what is justifiably a difficult coalition situation. Adversity, they say, is the test of leadership. Mr Singh has only survived the test. Neither in universities nor in politics are there gold medals for survivors.