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The limits of the A.K. Antony line

Perhaps the most significant statement during last week’s All India Congress Committee (AICC) meeting in New Delhi came from the party president, Sonia Gandhi. She made bold to suggest that just because the party found itself in a coalition paradigm, there was no reason for it to concede forever political space to others. It is a refreshing assertion. National political parties have of late exhibited symptoms of a total loss of self-belief and have unthinkingly given in to muting their pan-Indian voice, partly out of deference to their coalition partners’ presumed sensitivities, and partly because of their own depleting nationwide electoral presence.

The Sonia Gandhi assertion on the Congress wanting to reclaim its old glory is in sharp contrast to what for want of a better term can only be called the ‘A.K. Antony line.’ The Defence Minister is credited with a well-defined “pragmatic view” which he is believed to have argued consistently in the party’s crucial decision-making forum, the Core Group. The argument has often been made in the context of the current standoff with the Left parties over the proposed India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement.

The Antony argument, roughly, runs something like this: why risk a break-up in the relationship with the Left if it means an early mid-term poll, that too when after the next Lok Sabha elections the Congress may find itself doing business with the Left parties?

Or, for instance, Mr. Antony was not in favour of the AICC resolution taking a critical note of the eulogy of LTTE cadres. (This was an indirect reference to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s recent paean to a slain LTTE activist). His argument was that the Tamil Nadu Congress had already voiced its objection. Where was the need for the AICC to rub it in once again against a critical ally?

The Antony line is not the preference of one individual but rather represents cumulative instincts and personal calculations of many Congress leaders, especially those who happen to find themselves in Ministerial offices. The line gets manifested in many variations in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and other parts of the country.

Mr. Antony is a highly respected leader in the Congress, but he is not without his admirers even outside the party. He is respected for his integrity in political life. He is also a quintessential product of Kerala politics; his political instincts have been honed by Kerala’s more than four-decade-old coalition culture. This culture puts the greatest of premium on virtues of compromise and accommodation; it has romanticised factionalism and fragmentation. For all their experience in the art and practice of accommodation and compromise, Mr. Antony and others could not ensure that the veteran leader, K. Karunakaran, and his group did not leave the party. Similarly, a roaring dispute between the two factions of the CPI(M) escalated into such open warfare that a no-nonsense central leadership had to step in to restore some kind of order. Indeed, Kerala itself has become an example of definite limits to the usefulness of the politics of accommodation.

A similar essay in “pragmatism” is on display in Karnataka. After weeks of opportunism masquerading as principled pragmatism, the search for coalition, based on time-tested working principles of compromise and accommodation, produced the only possible outcome: a stalemate. The MoU proposed by H.D. Deve Gowda was yet another experiment in the politics of compromise and accommodation. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s assertion that it would not give in to the MoU paradigm did not come a day too soon.

This culture of compromises, accommodation and self-abnegation all in the name of preserving this or that coalition has produced an unhealthy timidity — of voice, language, political choices and policy alternatives — in our political class. This timidity is most pronounced in the leaders of the two national parties — the Congress and the BJP — which have pretensions of wanting to rule the country as per their ideology. Ms Gandhi’s assertion of her party wanting to regain its own space ought to be seen in this context of a decade-old habit of indecisiveness and paralysis.

It is immaterial whether or not the Congress or the BJP will be able to find the requisite certitude and clarity about ideas and ideals to be believed in and practised in order to sustain the Indian Union. What is important is the realisation that it is incumbent upon the pan-Indian political parties to remain true to the obligations and responsibilities involved in governing this complex polity.

Over and above everything, the Centre is called upon to ensure that the federal relations are conducted in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution. If a ruling arrangement at the Centre is hostage to regional players and parties, the balance swings unhealthily against the federal principles. Once the Centre-State equations get distorted, other constitutional functionaries — the judiciary, all-India services, the quasi-autonomous bodies such as the Election Commission of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation — begin to stray beyond the limits of their jurisdiction. If large tracts of India have already placed themselves beyond the coercive reach of the Union, it is primarily because New Delhi neither inspires awe nor commands respect. No less subversive are non-cooperation and unilateralism of the so-called constitutionally functioning States.

The creeping imbalance in the federal equation is best illustrated in the gradual loss of the primacy of the office of Prime Minister. As a wag remarked recently, there was a time when the Prime Minister used to appoint Chief Ministers, but now it is the Chief Ministers who get to select the Prime Minister. As it is, Prime Ministers cannot even discipline Chief Ministers of their own party. Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted to send Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi packing after the Gujarat riots of 2002; but he did not have sufficient clout within his own party. Or, even if he is so inclined, it is doubtful whether Manmohan Singh can give the marching orders to any of the Chief Ministers belonging to his own party. Nor, for instance, can a Prime Minister express displeasure, leave alone take drastic action, against Cabinet colleagues belonging to the allies. This was as true in the NDA era as it is in the UPA age. For all practical purposes, Articles 355 and 356 of the Constitution have lost their suasive content.

Governing in India is intrinsically a centrist, liberal, middle-of-the-path, plural and secular proposition. Any national party which strays away from this minimal agenda invites retribution from the voters — as the BJP did in 2004 for its failure to discharge its national duty in Gujarat in 2002. Beyond this minimal agenda, there is the requirement that the Centre should mediate conflicts among provinces as also harmonise ideas and energies. These tasks become problematic without functioning and functional all-India political parties, with a decisive and clear-headed “high command.”

What is becoming also obvious is that the coalition format’s inherent contradictory decision-making has become a liability when it comes to dealing with the external world. The outsider may or may not be impressed with our democracy’s capacity to produce arguments, contentions and policy-stalemates; all that the outsider wants is to have the confidence that honourable promises honourably made would be honourably carried out, consistent with the declared law of the land. We no longer have the luxury to retreat into a Burma-type isolation. Incoherence and indecision in our ruling quarters give us no advantage vis-À-vis the outsider.

The objective and long-term interests of the Indian state demand a stable and purposive governing arrangement in New Delhi. One of the primary responsibilities of the party system is to produce such an arrangement. Sooner or later, the responsibility will have to be discharged by a political party that has ideas and inspirations anchored in a pan-Indian vision. Such a vision cannot be the sum total of regional bosses’ personal agendas.

It is immaterial whether or not the Congress is capable of dipping into its own history and memories to re-invent itself as an instrument of pan-Indian governance. It is enough evidence that as president of the Congress, Ms Gandhi has not abandoned the idea.

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