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A year of hard decisions statecraft

Benazir Bhutto has already displaced Narendra Modi from the magazine covers. Concerns and calculations have changed within a few days; nonetheless, the dangerous implications of the Modi victory in Gandhinagar and equally troublesome downstream effects of the Bhutto assassination in Rawalpindi will need to be dealt with competently and confidently, that too in a manner as not to aggravate further our collective travails or to erode further our democratic institutions. That simply means that the next year will make exacting demands on those who choose to be our rulers and redeemers. And, as it were, all the decisions, hard ones, are for the ruling establishment to make.

The first and foremost decision the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi duo, along with whomsoever it deems fit to consult, will need to take is when to have the elections to the next Lok Sabha. This is the traditional prerogative of the Prime Minister in a cabinet system of government; but, more than a constitutional strategy, the timing of the general elections is the supreme political decision available to a ruling party. Not only will the Congress leadership need to decide the timing of the next Lok Sabha elections, the decision will also involve on what issues, under whose leadership, and in whose company to approach the electorate. If there is one lesson to be learnt from the Gujarat experience, it is that an effective electoral strategy hinges on manufacturing a credible narrative and an equally credible narrator.

In other words, the Congress leadership will need to tell the country unequivocally as to who its prime ministerial mascot at the time of the next Lok Sabha elections is. The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has already announced its prime ministerial candidate, and the collective energies of the National Democratic Alliance would gravitate towards L.K. Advani’s prime ministerial ambitions. The Congress will not be able to ignore the public expectations over the prime ministerial leadership question; it cannot repeat its 2004 formulations that the elected Congress MPs would choose the next Prime Minister.

This takes us into the very heart of the Congress priestly code: the fiction has to be maintained that Ms Gandhi is the only leader who generates any kind of popular and electoral appeal. The sub-theme of this priestly code is that the only other person who can be permitted to make any claims of charisma is young Rahul Gandhi.

The lack of ambiguity on the leadership hierarchy could itself become an asset to a political organisation, but for familiar reasons the Congress has managed to convert the Rahul Gandhi opportunity into a liability. Let us reframe the Congress leadership dilemma: what to do with Dr. Singh? Any hint of Dr. Singh’s presence at the top of the prime ministerial line-up is bound to bring out the worst instinct among senior Congress leaders, who have spent a lifetime of intrigue in the service of the Nehru-Gandhi family. At the same time, the party cannot possibly disown a serving Prime Minister whose personal integrity and clean image stand out as the shinning attributes in an otherwise uninspiring establishment. No major scandal has erupted around Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Admitted, yes, Dr. Singh’s is the persona that cannot be easily marketed at the election time.

But, Ms Gandhi, having made the “supreme sacrifice” in May 2004 cannot now possibly tell the country that she would be amenable to being made Prime Minister. She can be trusted to have come to terms with her own limitations as well as to have acquired a reasonably decent idea of how complex the prime ministerial job is.

Still, the Congress has the option to dump Dr. Singh and boldly opt for Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate. On paper, a standoff between an 80-year-old Mr. Advani and a 40-year-old Rahul Gandhi could be an extremely attractive electoral proposition; the country is young and no longer seems willing to be mired in old memories of the freedom struggle or in ancient myths of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. The Advani-Rahul contrast can be marketed creatively, except that the young man seems to be totally impervious to the demands of the democratic leadership. He has not even given an indication that he has the burning desire to want the job, leave alone providing any inspirational flashes. Leadership is not a part time assignment but a consuming affair that leaves very little room for personal indulgences.

The leadership issue apart, the Congress will need to be clear-headed about its relationship with the Left between now and the next Lok Sabha elections. As it were, even without the disagreement over the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal there has been little political warmth between the Left and the Congress. In fact, it would be foolish for the Congress leadership to ignore the simple fact that there is a convergence between the BJP and the Left: both want a weak Congress, in the short term as well as in the long term. Both have done their bit in weakening the Congress; both have reduced the UPA government into a bumbling proposition; and, both have done their very best to heap ridicule on the Prime Minister. To be fair, neither the BJP nor the Left is under any obligation to help the Congress regain its earlier political dominance. Given this unvarnished play of realities, the Congress leadership will need to factor in the future of the terms of its relationship with the Left when it takes a decision about the next Lok Sabha elections. The Congress cannot possibly hope to win the electorate’s confidence by telling the nation that the best it can offer is more of the same — divided authority and checkmated decision-making at the Centre. Even if the Congress decides to maintain diplomatic silence on its ties with the Left after the next Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led opposition can be expected to make it into an election issue.

If anything, the continuous turmoil and uncertainty in our neighbourhood should suggest that the electorate — especially key stake-holders such as the middle classes and the corporate business houses — will want to see a reasonably coherent governing arrangement in New Delhi. People have never voted back a government that has given the impression of being internally distracted or otherwise hobbled when it comes to taking hard decisions. Even in 1999, the voters opted for the National Democratic Alliance notwithstanding its colossal failure to detect what was happening in Kargil; the voters preferred the Vajpayee-led “working” government because the Sonia Gandhi-led opposition was deemed even less capable of providing stability at the Centre.

The Gujarat outcome has understandably produced despondency as also expectedly reinforced timidity among the second-rate voices that crowd the core of the decision-making apparatus in New Delhi. Yet the Congress leadership has to make up its mind: does it want to remain content to serve out the next 16 months before being voted out of power or to reinvent itself over the next 12 months as an electorally saleable proposition. If the Congress leadership does take the hard decision that it still has the ideas and the energy to help the polity find a working governing arrangement, then it will have to address itself to the deepening sense of disquiet in the country at large. Nine per cent growth is all right. All the more reason that the middle classes need the assurance that their economic prosperity will not be jeopardised on account of governmental instability, lawlessness or failing institutions.

Simply put, the country will need to feel confident that its security is in more competent hands. This ties up with the larger requirement of assuring the country that the government of the day has some idea how to deal effectively with terrorism. The government has neither been able to make the moral case for caring for the minorities — including the Sachar Committee recommendations — nor has it convinced the country that the government is not pitifully quagmired in the “appeasement” at the expense of the simple and unambiguous requirement of enforcing the rule of law. Depending on the ability or inability of the Congress leadership to take hard decisions, the coming year could end up deciding irreversibly the future of India as an emerging power in an increasingly uncertain world. The Indian state would need to be protected against unhelpful players abroad as also against drift and indecision at home.

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