'..tired, listless, without energy' — Washington Post Article That Angered Indian PM

In early September 2012, the Washington Post published a profile of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by its India bureau chief Simon Denyer, titled "India's 'silent' prime minister becomes a tragic figure." It set off one of the angriest government-versus-media confrontations of the UPA era.

The piece argued that Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms and a respected figure on the world stage, was "in danger of going down in history as a failure." It reported that the image of "the scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government" — and that observers in New Delhi saw "considerable doubt that Singh has the energy or determination to achieve much." The context was the coal-allocation scandal, which had paralyzed Parliament, and an economy slowing to below 6 percent growth.

The government's response was furious. Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni called the report "yellow journalism" and "baseless," declaring: "How can a US daily take the matter such 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." The PMO's communications adviser, Pankaj Pachauri, objected to the "unethical and unprofessional conduct" of the paper and the journalist, and claimed the paper had never sought the government's side — a claim the Post disputed, saying interview requests had been declined since July 30.

The BJP, naturally, delighted in the whole affair. "The position of the prime minister today is untenable," said party leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy, after noting it had taken the Post a long time to notice Singh's silence.

The paper later appended a correction: two of the article's most biting assertions — former media adviser Sanjaya Baru's claim that Singh had become an object of ridicule, and historian Ramachandra Guha's charge of "timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty" — had first appeared in The Caravan magazine in 2011 without credit.

The episode was part of a season of international verdicts on the Singh government: Time had labeled him "The Underachiever," and The Economist spoke of "Brezhnev-grade complacency." For a government that had entered office in 2004 with enormous moral capital, the foreign press obituaries of 2012 were, in their way, the harshest verdict of all — delivered not by opponents, but by observers who had once been admirers.