Media outlets publishing the “first rough draft of history,” authored by journalists, retired officials and academics, have been extraordinarily kind in estimating the legacy of late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Their lavish praise of Singh conveys the impression that his tenure, between 2004 and 2014, was without a blemish. This might be ascribed to the Indian tradition of not speaking ill of the dead, or to the nostalgia for the Manmohan era when the national life was calmer, more harmonious than now, or to the media’s gratitude for the man, whom they criticised without facing retribution.

Yet, in later years, when historians write about the modern Indian State’s evolution into a behemoth that crushed, without mercy, the rights of citizens, they would apportion the blame for it to Singh as well. They will puzzle over why his government, at its inception in 2004, repealed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002—and yet, in the same year, amended the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), equipping the State with an even deadlier instrument for tormenting dissenters. They will note how a countrywide witch-hunt was triggered by Singh’s statement in 2005—that the Maoists were “India’s greatest internal security threat.”