- The Prime Minister’s crucial visit to Dhaka ended in a near-disaster after Mamata Banerjee said a categorical No to the river water sharing proposal -- a refusal that had as much to do with inept political management as with the interests of Paschim Banga.
- Home Minister P Chidambaram blew a fuse after Arun Jaitley pointed out that the past five terrorist incidents had remained unsolved. At his Press conference on Friday, he lit into the BJP, even as every sundry jihadi ‘chhotoo’ kept sending insolent, catch-me-if-you-can e-mails to the Delhi Police.
- Rahul Gandhi was heckled when he went to visit the injured from the High Court blast at Delhi’s RML Hospital on Friday afternoon. This was the first time that the heir apparent had been subjected to popular anger over the Government’s failure to control terror.
- Last Monday, former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh -- understood to be among the UPA’s main crisis managers during the trust vote of 2008 -- was sent to judicial custody in Tihar Jail in connection with the ‘Cash for Votes’ scandal.
- A CAG report has cast serious doubts on any strong financial rationale behind the Indian Airlines-Air India merger. There are suggestions that the indiscriminate purchase of new aircraft by AI was dictated by collateral considerations.
- Sports Minister Ajay Maken charged his party colleague Mani Shankar Aiyar with wilfully scuttling the Commonwealth Games. This in turn led to Aiyar hitting Maken well below the belt and questioning his educational credentials.
- Six Chief Ministers opted out of an apparently meaningless National Integration Council meeting where the proposed Communal Violence Bill failed to muster anything resembling a consensus.
- The TRS has threatened to resume the Telangana agitation next week, adding to the woes of Congress MPs from the region who haven’t been able to tour their constituencies for the past six months.
The only bit of good news for the Congress was the return of Sonia Gandhi to Delhi after her medical treatment at an undisclosed foreign destination. But even this potentially joyous event was tempered by quiet discomfiture over the continuing secrecy over her state of health.
That the Government is seriously floundering and unable to get any fix on either governance or political management is undeniable. This dismal state of affairs is also recognised (in private) by die-hard Congress loyalists. What is worrying the Congress even more is that the hopes they had pinned on the emerging leadership of Rahul Gandhi have not met with wider public endorsement. Things are indeed falling apart and the Centre is not holding.
What should concern the country even more is that the apparent collapse is happening even before the tenure of UPA2 has reached half-way mark. With general election due in May 2014, the next 32 months looks distinctly gloomy for the country, not least because it also coincides with a global economic downturn. Will India, it is being asked, mirror the performance of its cricket team in England?
Ideally, a resurgent Opposition should have given rise to hopes and even been the trigger for some of the UPA’s coalition partners to reconsider their options. However, it is one thing to win three of the four posts in last week’s Delhi University Student’s Union poll -- a decent barometer of youth opinion in the Capital -- but there are only patchy indications that non-confidence in the UPA has automatically translated into hope in the BJP and NDA.
The principal Opposition has gained from the follies of the Government but this gain is not commensurate with the quantum of anti-incumbency. Indeed, I would go a step further and suggest that if the Government succeeds in inflation management and maintains growth at the 8 per cent level, it may be able to regain some lost ground. Of course, the expectations of the regime being able to seriously address the problems of corruption and terrorism are very low.
It is not for me to suggest what the Opposition should do to gain the confidence of a despondent India. Undertaking a process of internal cleansing to remove individuals with questionable integrity is an obvious move but which, nevertheless, is a project that is only hesitantly undertaken. The procrastination that marked the unavoidable decision to remove ‘Nishank’ from the Chief Minister’s post in Uttarakhand is a case in point. If BC Khanduri is being restored, the question remains: Why was he removed in the first place?
As important as integrity is the need to formulate fresh ideas that address issues relating to the economy, national security and governance. It does not do to merely say ‘good governance’. What are needed are concrete ideas. These ideas don’t necessarily win votes but they convey an image of seriousness, so essential for a larger sense of political credibility. In the 1990s, the BJP captured the political imagination of a restless country because it promised a new culture of politics. That is why people were willing to give it a try.
In today’s climate, the BJP has to get over the intellectual stagnation that has characterised it since 2004 without, at the same time, succumbing to unilateralist recklessness. Equally, it has to begin a process of questioning existing shibboleths and techniques. Travelling a well-trodden path may not be the route to success. It could even invite ridicule.
