Opinion - Leader Page Articles   

A dangerous incoherence at the core

Harish Khare

Even after 20 months in office, the ruling dispensation at the Centre is yet to acquire any kind of political coherence. There is a lack of political synergy between the Congress party and the Government.

TILL THE late afternoon of Monday, January 16, when the Central Bureau of Investigation brass decided to field a Joint Director before the media to answer a few questions, the Manmohan Singh Government appeared to be at a loss on how to deal with the disclosures in the Bofors-Quattrocchi scandal. For four full days the Government's critics had a field day, flinging insinuations and charges while the ruling establishment behaved as if it too believed all that was being alleged against Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj. The Opposition parties have a legitimate right to question the Government's moves and motives. Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Arun Jaitley has done a fine job of making the Government look bad and guilty. This is the basic stuff of a democratic arrangement. It is not enough that an honest and upright man should head the Government. Difficult questions need to be answered convincingly.

What this latest episode in the unending Bofors-Quattrocchi political epic reveals is the disparateness in the Manmohan Singh regime. Even after 20 months in office, the ruling dispensation is yet to acquire any kind of political coherence, revealing a dangerous absence of esprit de corps. There is a total breakdown of political synergy between the Congress party and the Government. True, a coalition government produces its own weaknesses but these handicaps have been converted into infirmities because three key features remain absent from Team Manmohan: an undisputed leader, a temperamentally compatible team, and a clear-cut game plan. Instead, again and again, Ministers are made to feel that they not only have to defend themselves against the Opposition but also watch out for party colleagues, coalition partners, and supporting allies.

There seems to be a complete lack of appreciation that the Cabinet system is a team affair and in this there can be no individual winners. In the current Bofors-Quattrocchi affair, the most damaging insinuations have been whispered against the Law Minister not by the BJP managers but by Mr. Bhardwaj's own Cabinet colleagues. Admittedly, Mr. Bhardwaj is not the most liked Minister and he has his share of friends and detractors. When the "scandal" first broke, everybody in the Congress hierarchy was inclined to believe that Mr. Bhardwaj was "up to his old tricks."

But this is not an isolated phenomenon. Six months ago when the capital was agog with all kinds of stories against the Finance Minister, these could be easily traced to a Cabinet colleague who thinks he would make a better Finance Minister than P. Chidambaram. When an initiative from the Ministry of Human Resource Development runs into any kind of obstacle, it is immediately seen as Arjun Singh's problem; when a Pranab Mukherjee goofs up in giving a "clean chit" to George Fernandes, he is suspected of having unfriendly designs. Everybody is waiting for everyone else to stumble.

This absence of team spirit is perhaps built into the dichotomous ruling structure, based on a divorce between political power and official authority. Congress president Sonia Gandhi represents the political power; and, though she has sincerely and honestly tried to bolster the Prime Minister's authority, her own party managers and lieutenants cannot be faulted if they do not share her enthusiasm. Since March 1998 they were encouraged to practice intrigue and low-level politics and now they are intellectually and mentally incapable of any kind of political wisdom or personal magnanimity. For the middle-level managers, Ms. Gandhi, her son, and her daughter represent the future and they see no reason to invest in Dr. Manmohan Singh.

The dichotomy between party president and Prime Minister could have been a source of additional strength but it is now a cause for political paralysis because the two of them choose to remain reluctant power practitioners. The problem has been further compounded by Dr. Manmohan Singh's own preference to position himself as an "above the fray" Prime Minister. For better or worse, Dr. Manmohan Singh has redefined the role of the Prime Minister's Office. Instead of revelling in occupying the commanding heights of power, policy, and patronage, the PMO has today redesigned itself as a mediator among disparate Cabinet colleagues.

What is more, the PMO has come to acquire a fashionable disdain for anything "political." At the first sign of trouble, the PMO's only reflex is to insulate the Prime Minister from any suggestion of political partisanship. This PMO-has-nothing-to-do-with-it mentality has blunted the political antennas in a crucial set-up. What is worse this cultivated disdain for "political" matters has made Dr. Manmohan Singh's aides totally impervious to the modern executive's imperative to communicate.

While an aversion to "spin" is understandable and even admirable in a Prime Minister, no executive, leave alone a political executive, has the luxury to remain cut off from all information avenues. As Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has made speeches without really winning many hearts. The rub is the flawed story telling. Apart from the fact that by and large the media do not have the competence to understand complex policies, it is necessary to tell the story in an idiom of the Prime Minister's own choosing. But the first requirement is to understand that conscious and competent efforts would need to be made to put the message out.

On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent the Government's political rivals from taking advantage of this story-telling vacuum. Last month it was the Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh who was allowed to get away with his accusations; this month it is the BJP that is levelling charges, without any kind of response from the Government for days.

The result is a delicious political incongruity. Those who have access to authority, power, and information have no stomach for "political" battles; and, those in the AICC who have to engage in daily skirmishes have no idea what is going on in the Government or why the Government took a particular policy decision. And rather cleverly, the Opposition keeps on exploiting this dichotomy to its advantage.

When it suits Mr. Jaitley he appeals to the Prime Minister's I-am-above-the-fray persona and invites him to act against "an erring and a delinquent Minister"; and, when it suits Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, he accuses Dr. Singh of being the weakest Prime Minister. But strangely enough the ruling arrangement remains mired in its own stalemated dynamism.

The "core group" arrangement has not worked out, partly because it is too big but mostly because of a disharmony of interests and impulses among the eight members. It serves neither as a cabal nor as a clique. Moreover, Ms. Gandhi's own noblesse oblige enjoins her to want to take everyone along but it distracts from group solidarity and collective motivation. This is because everyone believes that a loud protestation of loyalty to Ms. Gandhi is sufficient to free them to pursue their narrow interests, irrespective of the Manmohan Singh Government's political and policy requirements.

This functional discord within the Congress generates difficulties for the Government with the allies, with the supporting parties, as well as encourages rivals to take pot shots, sometimes at the Prime Minister and sometimes at Ms. Gandhi. It would be interesting to see whether the Hyderabad Plenary session can generate a corrective chemistry. It will be up to Ms. Gandhi to set in motion a new mindset in the party, anchored more in ideas and values than in loyalty.

Perhaps the problem is that both the party and the Government are reluctant to understand the need to engage in the battle for the middle classes' mind. Important as it is to keep track of the masses' frustrations and to address those desires and demands, it is equally important to calibrate perceptions. In between elections, it is the middle classes that control the democratic noise. The mechanics of this noise are becoming more and more complicated with a proliferation of information outlets.

It requires competence and willingness to negotiate and manipulate this information basket; otherwise the noise can overwhelm and cripple. It is this democratic noise that produces confidence and confusion among the political leaders; a self-assured leader can use the democratic cacophony to graft legitimacy and efficacy around his leadership. It is time the Prime Minister summons the requisite self-assurance and the Congress party helps him in putting an end to the dangerous incoherence at the very core of the Indian state.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Bhardwaj must go
New norms for corporate governance
A dangerous incoherence at the core
Parliament and a tale of two scandals
France's first woman President?
Race science heading for rehabilitation
PM's statement
Praiseworthy
Making Haj safe
Disappointing
Give him a chance
"Bollywood must retain its own style"

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu