Blair’s book kept for sale at a store in London. (AFP)

London, Sept. 8: Manmohan Singh has received a fleeting but flattering mention in Tony Blair’s best-selling account of his decade in Downing Street, A Journey.

The bad news for the author is that he is having to abort one public signing after another because of the danger of being pelted with eggs thrown by assorted members of the anti-war movement who are dogging his footsteps.

On page 534 of the 718-page volume, Blair recalls a conversation in 1995 that he had when he was in opposition with Lee Kuan Yew, “the smartest leader I think I ever met”. The Singapore strongman offered him some advice on governing: keep the Thatcher reforms but get rid of this madness on Europe. ‘I’ve told Margaret she’s crazy on this,’ he said. ‘Britain can’t afford to be out of Europe in the world as it is today. It’s not realistic.’

Blair then observes: “Much later, the wonderful Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told me the same thing.” That’s it.

The reader does not get to find out why Blair thinks Manmohan, with whom he had a good relationship, though probably not as close as the one enjoyed by his successor Gordon Brown, was wonderful.

References to India occur on pages 225, 366, 482, 502, 554, 559, 660, 671, 672, 677 and 688. Usually, India is grouped with a number of countries while Blair makes a general point.

It is on the last occasion that he actually says something about India. “Three years out of office have given me time to reflect on our system of government and to study other systems. I have no doubt democracy is the best system. And India remains the shining example of a large nation, still developing, that manages to be genuinely democratic.”

He goes on: “The truth is that in order to function well, democracies need to be more than simply places where universal suffrage decides who governs. They also need to have the capacity, institutions, culture and rules to make it work effectively. Sometimes this will take time, which is why a nation like China, unlike India, will only be ready for simple democracy at a certain point in development.”

The first reference to India concerns climate change: “Take climate change, which is the global challenge. The solution requires developing and developed nations — China and India, America and Europe — to agree.”

A discussion on geopolitics produces the next reference: “And will not India and China, each with three times as many citizens as the whole of the EU put together, once their economies have developed sufficiently as they will do, not configure entirely the geopolitics of the world and in our lifetime?”

Page 482 has Blair checking university rankings. “I looked at the top fifty universities in the world and saw only a handful in the UK, and barely any in mainland Europe. America was winning this particular race, with China and India coming up fast behind.”

Then a moral: “Divided, we are not only weak, but we can unbalance the geopolitical power game. Europe can play a role positioned not between but alongside the US and China, India, Russia, Brazil and the other emerging powers.”

Then it’s about his decision to expand the G8 in 1998: “This time I took it on to a whole new level. First, I invited five nations – China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico – for more or less the whole summit…”

Then a line on climate change. “As I never tired of pointing out to people, it was a fat lot of good over a hundred nations coming together under the UN to agree a climate deal if the US wasn’t part of it, and India and China weren’t willing to accept any forward obligations to reduce emissions.”

On page 660, he says he realises the G8 will not survive. “China, India, Brazil and others would demand a seat at the table; and if they didn’t get one, they would get their own table. I saw the danger for Europe of a G2: US and China. And then, if we weren’t careful, a G3: US, China and India. Or a G4: US, China, India and Brazil. And so on. In other words we had to face the fact that Britain is a small island of 60 million people off the continent of Europe…”

On page 671, there is a little comment on the emerging economies. “Ironically, they will continue to embrace liberalisation at the very point we seem to lose faith in it. Their risk is failure to implement their known government reform (eg India) and/or that through policies that stagnate growth we curtail the market for their goods (eg China).”

His view is that “China is opening up, and thrives when it does so. India needs less bureaucracy and less state power, not more.”

He returns to geopolitics. “Of course, the geopolitical power structure is changing. China, India, Brazil, Russia and, in time, Indonesia, Mexico and others demand, rightly, to be treated as equals and partners…. Possibly we have not yet internalised the true significance of China’s rise (or indeed that of India).”