NCTC row: How to lose allies & alienate the opposition

By confronting and then giving in to non-Congress chief ministers opposed to the National Counter Terrorism Centre, the Centre has become further weak. Several reasons contribute to the Centre undermining itself time and again, and well-known as these reasons are, the Manmohan Singh government is no wiser about regaining lost ground.

Specific to NCTC, home minister P Chidambaram is the chief problem. A home minister should inspire trust, respect and admiration. He does none of these now. He has had run-ins with Nitish Kumar on tackling Maoists. J Jayalalithaa loathes him. They are India’s two most powerful CMs. Nor is he on good terms with Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi and other non-Congress CMs.

As home minister, you have to put your best political foot forward. Sardar Patel’s success owes much to this. Chidambaram hides behind legalism. In his letter to CMs arguing in favour of NCTC, he preaches about the states’s duties. Mamata, Modi & Co won’t stand for that. He concealed behind the law to justify Anna Hazare’s arrest and it blew up on his face, and  the face of the other ruling party lawyer, Kapil Sibal.

If Chidambaram had been a grassroots politician, he would have instinctively known how to manage these powerful chief ministers. He would have spoken the language of politicians as somehow only Pranab Mukherjee in the government knows how to. In the past, Chidambaram has deployed his home secretary to do the hard talk, and elected chief ministers resent that. And for some reason, he does not engender trust like Manmohan Singh even though the PM may have a hundred failings.

The other reasons for the Centre’s growing weakness are general. Mainly, coalition politics has seized the Centre in an iron grip. It began in the late 1980s with Mandal and Mandir politics and hasn’t loosened its vice-like hold. Coalition politics demands the practice of coalition dharma. In simple terms, it means that every major policy decision is vetted and cleared by the allies of a coalition government. Every day becomes a day of give and take, a habit. The uninitiated and unwise may see this as compromise and surrender. The visionary builds on this, and with patience and the winning of trust, proceeds to the next stage.

The Congress refuses to learn such basics of the art of coalitions. Since a bulk of the Congress’s UPA allies left the mother party at one time or another, the basic ideologies do not clash, although differences of opinion may persist on some matters, like dynastic rule. But despite the host of commonalities — which was never available to AB Vajpayee’s NDA — the Congress makes a hash of it. Its ministers couldn’t be bothered about consulting Mamata Bannerjee on FDI in retail or the Lokpal bill or sharing the Teesta waters with Bangladesh, and when the lady goes on the offensive, the central government has to run for cover.

In fact, there is no sensitivity about the allies among Congress cabinet ministers. Used to unleashing the CBI after the likes of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, they think Mamata can be likewise frightened. Veiled threats are issued through sections of the media. Then there are attempts to be legalistic before the resistance crumbles, as it did on NCTC. Because the central government is rent by Congress factionalism, it cannot be united and function politically, taking allies on board in the most organic and pragmatic manner. The end result is that the Centre is put into confrontation with the states, which having among the strongest chief ministers in India’s independent history, makes the battle one-sided.

Lastly, there is duality at the Centre which weakens it especially as the opposed non-Congress chief ministers, for the most part, are strong individuals. The separation of powers between Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister has impaired Manmohan Singh, to the extent that a recent Supreme Court judgment indicted his PMO officials for disregarding his orders, leading to the 2G scam.

It defies understanding why the prime minister cannot personally engage non-Congress chief ministers since they so obviously respect him. To contain pressures from the BJP, Vajpayee cultivated close relations with the NDA’s allies. In a similar situation, why isn’t the PM befriending non-Congress allies and opposition leaders? He could avoid embarrassments like on NCTC and arrest the slide of the Centre’s powers, unless it is too late.

NV Subramanian is editor of the New Delhi-based www.newsinsight.net and writes on politics and strategic affairs