This is why I love democracy, not just at an intellectual level, but also for its extreme entertainment value. The people of India have just been treated to one of the keenest political contests in our history. The Oracle now undertakes a systematic analysis of the situation and how it affects all parties concerned (including the nation and its people, lest we forget).1. The Congress: For a party that has been parched in waiting for election victory the results of the confidence vote were as sweet nectar. Across the Capital and across the country, Congress workers celebrated the moment with gusto. And who could blame them. Now that the euphoria is over, it is time for the Congress to take stock of the situation. In spite of all the murky deals, seedy subplots and dirty handshakes, the Congress has come out of the battle relatively unscathed. This was partly due to the uproarious manner in which the survival of Manmohan Singh's government was welcomed by the business community, the media and diplomats across the world. The other part was due to a "feel good factor" that ran through the people as soon as they knew the yoke of the Left had finally been lifted, without the immediate stress of a General Election.
This is Manmohan Singh's finest hour. He will almost certainly clinch his beloved Nuclear Deal and he has about nine months to pursue his reform agenda without being straddled by the regressive Left and concerns over the survival of his government. Besides, the confidence vote has bolstered his image, both nationwide and internationally, as a tall leader. This puts some wind into the Congress sails as they go into the 2009 elections projecting him as Prime Minister. Dr. Singh has finally been recognized as a politician of substance.
Sonia Gandhi's great success over four years of power has been to control sycophancy within her own party from reaching unsightly levels; for she has managed to get her Congressmen to regard the Prime Minister with some respect. The victory in Parliament on July 22 was projected, almost exclusively, as a victory for Dr. Singh and his UPA government. Of course, Sonia ji's ultimate aim is to secure the throne for her son Rahul. Unfortunately, the second part of her plan is yet to really take off. Rahul Gandhi's highly boyish speech in Parliament during the confidence vote confirms my suspicions that he is a highly unintelligent person. Sure, he has completed his Discover India tour and connected with many many people, but traveling the length and breadth of India surely does not seem to have increased his wisdom. Rahul has to come to terms with the fact that the Gandhi name no longer enjoys the credibility it had two generations ago; therefore in the absence of a real party organization and an inspiring slogan, he will, for the most part, be dismissed as just another politician with promises to make and little to offer.
The Congress has to come to terms with its new relationship with the Samajwadi Party. Something tells me that they haven't thought this through. In fact, in the heat of the contest, the party was too eager to employ the manipulative skills of Amar Singh to think much about Uttar Pradesh. If the Congress allies with the SP in Uttar Pradesh, its remaining base will be completely destroyed. If it does no, the government will enter Election 2009 looking like the potential loser. The party should realize that the current "feel good factor" about the survival of the Government is strictly about stability; the Aam Aadmi will completely reevaluate this piecemeal government before the elections.
More praise is in order for Sonia Gandhi. She has swallowed her pride and broken bread with the same Mulayam Singh that denied her the PM's post in 1998. She has managed to maintain that the confidence vote was all about Dr. Singh and thus enhanced his stature as a credible leader who has some measure of political control over his own government. This follows her previous successful political moves such as reaching out to the DMK (despite the Rajiv assassination accusations), building alliances in 2004 and declining the Prime Minister's chair. Sonia ji has proved to be one step ahead of her party.
2. The Left: There must be a lot of hand wringing going on at AKGopalan Bhavan in New Delhi. For four years the Left promised to bite and when they finally did, it turned out to be an empty boast. The Indo-US nuclear deal is all set to go through and there is nothing they can do about it. The newly unfettered Dr. Singh, in all probability, has a ruthless reform agenda in his mind. Worse still, election prospects in Kerala are awfully dim and West Bengal is, ever so slightly, beginning to slip away.
Serves them right: you could say. For four years the Left has borne out the UPA on the floor of the House and refused to take responsibility for the actions and policies of the same government. The arrogance reached its peak when the Left objected to the fact that the Prime Minister had declared his commitment to the nuclear deal to the people of India (before leaving for the G-8 meet in Tokyo) without taking them into confidence. The Left demanded that the Prime Minister seek "clearance" from them before flying to meet the G-8 in Tokyo. The Left demanded and demanded, cribbed and complained and finally went home with nothing.
The Left parties are the actual culprit in the political deadlock over the nuclear deal. This is because of the approach that the Left takes to governance. That is because the Left does not see democracy for what is. Democracy is NOT a dictatorship of the majority. The Left prevented the Prime Minister from walking over to the BJP and asking for support on the nuclear issue. It would have been delightful if the Congress and the BJP could have come together and negotiated a Deal that was manifestly in national interest. Given that the BJP was responsible for the "pro US turn, pro Israel turn" in India's politics, carrying out the first military nuclear tests, talking the Americans out of all the sanctions they had imposed and coming up with the idea that their could actually be nuclear trade between the two countries, it would never have been too hard to get the BJP on board. Instead, the Left mounted a humiliation offensive on the Opposition benches, firing from the shoulder of the ruling UPA. If only the Left had conceded that the Opposition had a right to exist, things would have been quite different.
No mention of July 22, 2008 is complete without a reference to Somnath Chatterjee's role. In all fairness, he has no moral right to continue after the Government survived the vote and his party is in the Opposition. It is true that the Constitution requires the Speaker to transcend party politics. Somnath Da needs to understand that this moral obligation (of being above party politics) applies to the Speaker only regarding the decisions he makes in running the House. In other words, the Speaker is called upon to face a difficult challenge; that of being objective and fair in all decisions despite being a member of a political party.
The problem with Somnath Chatterjee is that he is a narcissist. He believes that his own interpretation of the Constitution is above that of any other, including that of the Supreme Court of India. We all remember how Somnath Da objected to the manifestly fair decision of the Supreme Court in the Jharkhand confidence vote contest in 2005. And by the way, Somnath Da, the same Inder Singh Namdhari stepped down as speaker when Arjun Munda lost the confidence of the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha .... wish you would have a spark of shame left in you.
We will continue with the analysis of the situation in the next post.
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