An axis of allied forces

For almost three-quarters of our nearly 60-year-old political history, the Congress has led the Union government without any associate parties.

For almost three-quarters of our nearly 60-year-old political history, the Congress has led the Union government without any associate parties. Though its 1991 government was in minority, it was able to manage without any formal partners. The party’s winning strategy in 2004 was to create a new coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, as a counterforce to the ruling BJP-led NDA. Given India’s diverse character, the Congress dominance is a tribute to its historical role as the party of the Independence movement and its centrist, non-sectarian and secular politics. Today, even while the party seeks to re-establish its dominance across the full-spectrum of Indian politics, it is being realistic in spelling out the need for a coalition dharma. Coalition politics in India is complicated in which you can have constituents competing at the state-level, and collaborating at the national.

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The Congress and the Left Front in West Bengal and Kerala are cases in point. On the other hand, as in Bihar, a central coalition can have two offshoots at the state level. Promoting coherent coalitions and running them in a principled way, is a matter of practical, rather than moral, politics. A coalition that ignores this comes a cropper, as did the ones between the BJP and Mayawati’s BSP in UP. The unfolding drama in Karnataka is likely to teach us some more lessons on this score. Actually, the very first item in the agenda of coalition politics is the need to regulate competition. Each partner has the legitimate aspiration of expanding its sphere by winning more seats in an election. The challenge, however, is to be able to do so in not just a principled way, but a practical one.

In other words, competition must be pitched at a level that does not do harm to the coalition, but, ideally, is of collective benefit. In the past year or so, its Left allies, who are not even formal members of the coalition but behave as though they were in the driver’s seat, have hobbled the UPA. Greater damage has been caused by casual comments, rather than any real opposition to this policy or that. The Congress resolution has rightly called for the coalition to exercise collective responsibility. Perhaps it should have added a preamble on the virtues of modesty and self-discipline as well.