Narendra Modi will soon complete two terms, and wants a third. He seems to annoy a lot of otherwise objective people. So maybe the time has come to set out a basic principle about judging prime ministers, namely, you must make up your mind: are you judging the person or the prime minister? Should you project your dislike of a person on to his or her policies?

After all, perfectly nice persons can be lousy prime ministers and not-so-nice persons can be great prime ministers. So which are you judging?

The criterion for the official aspect is easy to set out: did he or she change the country for the better, on a permanent basis. Two words: better and permanent. Foreign and defence policies are emphatically not to be included.

The criteria for the person are harder because we don’t get to see much of prime ministers as persons, and what we do get to see is put out by their media handlers. You never hear about the nastiness and meanness till much later when someone writes about it all.

Subjective measures

More importantly, there’s also what prime ministers do to entire groups of citizens. Indira Gandhi went after businessmen and that virus has never left prime ministerial approaches. On her own admission, bank nationalisation was political, not economic.

Rajiv Gandhi didn’t single out groups of citizens but his successor, VP Singh, went after the upper castes. That virus too is still around in prime ministerial heads. Again cheap populism.

The one recent exception was Manmohan Singh. He never went after anybody for gaining political advantage. But he couldn’t do very much, anyway. Even the Indo-US nuclear deal had its origins in the sudden 2001 US decision to befriend India.

In fact, it’s not necessary to actually ‘go after’ a group. That involves acts of commission. Acts of omission, however, can be equally effective, as Narasimha Rao clearly demonstrated. Not doing something is just as good in governance, if not politics. He ran the country well but lost the next election. Annoyingly, all discussion of prime ministers is based on perceptions of their personal side. So Nehru was wise. Indira Gandhi was firm. Rajiv was nice. Narasimha Rao was wily. Atal Behari Vajpayee was sagacious. Manmohan Singh was a good man.

This kind of thing colours the judgment when it comes to judging policies. No matter how big the mistake, it’s forgotten or forgiven as soon as any of these adjectives is used. “Yes, it was a mistake but he or she meant well”.

Objective measures

That’s why we need objective measures to discuss prime ministers because for the country it’s the prime minister that’s important, not the person. No one emerges as being perfect.

Nehru’s big economic mistake was the whole idea of ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. But his social and democratic policies offset these. He also built some great educational institutions.

Indira Gandhi had no such redemption. She went wrong on both the economy and democracy. She, by the way, is the only one with a bad record on democracy.

As Congress president in 1959, she persuaded her father, who was PM, to dismiss the fully legitimate Communist government of Kerala. And there was the Emergency, of course.

Rajiv Gandhi brought modern technology into Indian mainstream thinking. That was a lasting contribution. But his social policies were disastrous. He was completely clueless.

Narasimha Rao was too-clever-by-half but he did try to liberate the economy. But that was under IMF duress.

Also, his preferred mode of action was inaction. It worked enough times to make him appear very good.

Likewise, Atal Behari Vajpayee, with his avuncular image, also preferred to let things take care of themselves. Can you recall any major policy initiative of his that changed India permanently for the better?

This is true of Manmohan Singh as well. MNREGA came during his time but few know that he was opposed to it. Indeed, during his time there was hardly any structural reform outside the financial sector. And the Indo-US nuclear deal never really took off.

Narendra Modi is still in office so, notwithstanding his Indira style of hard politics, which is used to judge him as a person, and which in turn is used to ignore his policies, we must wait before judging his prime ministership.

The chances are good that the pluses will outweigh the minuses. His digital successes alone will stand the test of time. They are both good and permanent.

The short point is that most prime ministers are disliked when in office. There are no exceptions. Some are even hated. But you know what. They all seem like angels a few years after they stop being PM.

We need objective measures to discuss prime ministers because for the country it’s the prime minister that’s important, not the person. No one emerges as being perfect.