"The Accidental Prime Minister"

Based on the memoir by Indian policy analyst Sanjaya Baru, the Accidental Prime Minister explores Manmohan Singh's tenure as the Prime Minister of India, and the kind of control he had over the cabinet and the country.

Sanjaya Baru was media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2004 to 2008. He later wrote a memoir about this stint called The Accidental Prime Minister, on which Vijay Ratnakar Gutte’s film is based.

It takes little time for The Accidental Prime Minister to start talking about what it’s really talking about. In a scene shortly after the 2004 general elections, before Dr. Manmohan Singh (Anupam Kher) is appointed as prime minister, Rahul Gandhi speaks to his mother, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in Italian, so the gathered ministers don’t know what’s been said. The charge against Sonia was always that she wasn’t from India, but it’s significant that the one line in Italian in the film is given not to her but to Rahul.

After Sonia declines the post of prime minister, the film contrasts the reaction of Priyanka Gandhi with the confused one of Rahul. Barely 10 minutes in, the film’s already asking the question.

Anupam Kher playing Manmohan Singh is excellent. Once he’s inside that voice and that unthreatening manner, he can slowly undermine him while appearing to be sympathetic.

It’s a good performance, with the actor slowly turning Singh’s light voice into a meek bleat and exaggerating his speech patterns. The impression is of an ineffectual man in the grip of the Gandhis, unable to control his party.