on the spot
Tavleen Singh
Wherever I have gone in Delhi in this past week I have been asked the same question. Will the government survive? I went to an elegant dinner party in the house of Muzaffar and Meera Ali and the theme of the evening was Sufism. An American called Kabir recited Rumi’s poems but no sooner did he finish than someone came up to me and asked if the government would survive. The next day I attended a family gathering where my relations usually prefer to discuss family gossip, and not politics, but even here there was more than one person who popped the question of the moment. And, when a day later Mamata Banerjee announced belligerently on national television that her ministers would be coming to Delhi on ‘jumavaar’(an Islamized version of shukarvaar?) to resign from the cabinet I could not even shop for vegetables, in my local bazaar, without someone or other asking how long I thought the government would last.
As a political pundit, who spends most of my time analyzing political things, I expect to be asked political questions wherever I go so the only reason why I am surprised by so many people showing an interest in politics this time is because I believe it reflects an anxiety and uncertainty about the country’s future. This is not healthy. But, perhaps inevitable at a time when there is such a leaderless quality about our present government, such an air of auto pilot in the way decisions are taken, that doubt is the dominant mood. The decision to allow FDI (foreign direct investment) in India’s retail trade is only the latest example of this. It is a decision that will go a long way towards bringing prosperity to rural India because it will help our poorest farmers find guaranteed markets for their products. Retail giants like Walmart build supply chains where they go because they cannot survive without them and the Indian farmer needs these badly. In the absence of this kind of supply infrastructure more than forty percent of fruit and vegetables rot in the fields.
Had this government been led by a real leader he (or she) would have prepared the country for this vital and excellent decision by telling people why it had become necessary. But, since neither the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi or Rahul bothered to explain it the argument against FDI in retail won the day. Every political party, from extreme left to extreme right leapt into the fray with the Chief Minister of West Bengal threatening openly to bring down the government. She went on and on, as she always does, about how she would not ‘tolerate’ a decision that went against the interests of that poor abused creature the ‘common man’, without anyone daring to tell her that she was taking the side of a handful of urban retailers and not the ‘common man’. Consumers in cities will benefit from the decision, farmers will benefit and the economy will get an infusion of investment that it desperately needs. But, these are things that are best explained by political leaders and this government is not sure who it is really led by hence this sense of confusion and drift.
Unfortunately, the consequences of having a leaderless government are felt not just in economic and political matters at home. As I pointed out in this column, last week, India’s foreign minister went off to Islamabad and allowed himself to be lectured about not being ‘hostage to history’ by the foreign minister of a country that has defined its foreign policy in South Asia by being hopelessly hostage to history. If Hina Rabbani Khar could forget about Kashmir there would be no problem with India. Right? Pakistan has never forgotten losing Kashmir in 1947 and yet it dares to ask India to forget 26/11. Not only did our Minister of External Affairs not respond in Islamabad to Ms Khar’s outrageous and dishonest advice but nor did any of the three leaders who are supposedly at the head of the United Progressive Alliance 2.0.
Why should Pakistan not take advantage, though, of a situation when any small, aggressive group can hold the Government of India to ransom as Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have proved over the past two years. Noticing the government’s weakness opposition parties have taken to opposing every decision the Prime Minister takes even if it is a decision that is in the interests of India. Our main opposition party has so mastered this tactic that it appears not to spend two minutes thinking before it acts. A whole session of Parliament was wasted because the BJP decided that the way to hold the government to account on Coalgate was to block discussion. Had they given this tactic a moment of thought they would have noticed that BJP Chief Ministers had opposed the auction of natural resources so their position was untenable. Ditto FDI in retail. Had they thought before acting BJP leaders may have realized that they could be hurting both the interests of middle class urban consumers and those involved in the farming trade in rural India by opposing FDI.
Nor do the BJP’s senior leaders appear to have thought about whether they really want an early election. Whenever I have tried to find out about this from ‘reliable sources’ I have been told that the BJP does not want to bring the government down but only to keep it in a permanent state of nervousness. Well, if this is what they think will win them the next election good for them. What is not good is a leaderless government because that affects the country’s security in every possible way.
In recent days there have been signs that the Sonia-Manmohan government is making a serious effort to prove that is still alive and well and not a lame duck. But, it will need to do much, much more to change the image it has acquired of being leaderless and adrift. Unless this happens India, you and I, and the common man will be much, much better off if the government falls over Mamata’s latest antics. Governments, even insignificant municipal governments, cannot function without a leader. Certainly, the government of a country the size of a continent cannot function without a leader. India has done since 2009 and now the chickens are coning home to roost.
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