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TWO years into its term, the UPA government resembles a rudderless ship. Unlike a year earlier, this time round Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ducked from rating the performance of his government. Its major ally, the Left Front, has stepped up criticism of the government’s economic and foreign policies and chosen the moment to ratchet up the rhetoric of the Third Front – a non BJP, non Congress coalition. This when the economic outlook of the country has rarely appeared as promising, with many arguing that ‘India has taken off at last’, that ‘Indian business has much to celebrate’ and about ‘India’s new dawn’.

In part, this may be because the Congress, the dominant partner in the UPA, has still to come to terms with the end of the era of ‘one-party dominance’. Years after the party lost its primacy in electoral terms, it continues to treat coalition government as a contingent evil, unable, despite creating a multiplicity of coordination forums, to develop healthy trust between partners and allies. Little surprise that, exceptions apart, ministers from coalition partners continue to nurse grudges, focus more on nurturing their own electoral constituencies and personal agendas than pull together to implement the agreed CMP.

The Congress, however, faces greater problems within than without. The party has for long ceased to be a vibrant, democratic organization, its highest policy-making body, the CWC, dominated by leaders without a popular mass base, better regarded for their skills as ‘backroom specialists’ or proximity to the supreme leader. And nothing captures the tension and the dilemma facing the party better than the unusual (for the Congress) arrangement of splitting the positions of the ‘head of party’ and ‘head of government’.

At the time Sonia Gandhi declined the position of prime minister and chose Manmohan Singh to head the government, the move was lauded for its sagacity and brilliance. Not only had Gandhi effectively defused the ugliness likely to follow with a non-Indian born prime minister, in choosing the current incumbent she signalled her preference for performance and probity in public life. Given the goodwill she enjoyed post her ‘renunciation’, as also her unexpected ability to connect with the masses, she took on the task of managing the party, coalition and allies, even as the PM was converted into the CEO of the government.

Unfortunately, the consequences of this neat division of labour and skills have not quite followed the script, despite both key players paying appropriate heed to correctness of form and procedure and (reportedly) enjoying the best of relationships. Many Congress members of the ministry continue to treat the PM as a political lightweight interloper, sometimes seek to undercut him and make little secret of their ‘loyalty’ only to the party leader. Evidently, they find it difficult to imagine someone other than a member of the ‘first family’ occupying the key post.

Throughout these two years, the existing arrangement has remained troubled by these conflicting pulls and pressures. In itself, this is only to be expected in a large democratic polity because competitive electoral politics necessarily demands that elected representatives pay greater attention to the concerns of their specific constituencies. One could even argue that the shift from a one-party dominance system to one characterized by a multiplicity of parties, each representing narrower spatial and ethnic concerns, is a success of our democracy. The inability to construct viable arrangements for both political resolution and governance is, however, costly, and that is what we are witnessing.

Be it the recent embarrassment over the refusal of the President to approve the Office of Profit Bill, the divisions in the party over the implementation of the decision to extend reservations for the OBCs in institutions of higher education or, what is far more contentious, extending reservations to the private sector – the ineptitude of political handling is apparent. And now with the Congress Party itself protesting the government decision to increase fuel prices, ostensibly with the quiet support of the party chief, the fractures can no longer be hidden. No wonder the party has been unable to showcase its most significant departure in foreign policy – the Indo-US nuclear deal – or leverage the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to bolster up its aam aadmi image.

All this comes at a time when the credibility of the political class stands at the lowest, most of all with the newer generation of middle class citizens expected to power the country into a 21st century knowledge and economic power. If the ‘compulsions’ of politics and the ‘requirements’ of governance start being seen as incommensurate, then our future as a democracy may become suspect. Are we surprised that Manmohan Singh refuses to rate, far less celebrate, the performance of his government?

Harsh Sethi