Why UPA-2 may bomb

One of our basic assumptions — that the Congress has emerged stronger after the recent elections — is already being put to the test. The idea that its allies have lost the ability to rock the boat is floundering.

The Congress may have left Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal sulking in their tents, but other allies are giving it a tough time. Among them: DMK’s M Karunanidhi and Trinamool’s Mamata Banerjee. With an assembly election due later this year, one shouldn’t discount Sharad Pawar’s ability to extract more juice out of the Congress either.

The reason for this is counterintuitive: strength and weakness are two sides of a coin and not exact opposites. People play strong and weak depending on who they perceive is their partner or adversary. Macho men may call the shots, but their “weaker” spouses pretty much get their way in most things.

The economies that grew strongest in the post-war years were not those of US allies, but recent enemies: Germany and Japan. Allies Britain and France grew progressively weaker. Both lost all their former colonies despite winning the war.

Take India and Pakistan, both metaphors for weak and strong. The Pakistani state depends on a strong army, but it has never won a war. On the other hand, we have always had fractious, incoherent governments. But we have never lost a war. The only time we did, we had a strong government (Nehru’s, during the China war). In fact, the stronger the governments we have had, the weaker our performance.

It took the country less than four years after the Bangladesh war to lose faith in Indira Gandhi, leading to the Emergency. Strong government led to the Hindu rate of growth. Weak governments gave us stronger results. Narasimha Rao’s in 1991 and Vajpayee’s in 1998-2004 gave us reforms and Pokharan II — the latter leading to global recognition of India’s growing stature and the Indo-US alliance.

The reasons for this paradox are entirely human. When we see a strong rival or partner, we automatically adjust our behaviour to reflect the new realities. Even a dog tugs lightly at the leash when granny is taking it for a walk. When we face a strong rival, we either behave like pussy cats (if we think we are weak), or roar like tigers (to fend them off). When the Congress was assumed to be weak — in the last Lok Sabha — its language automatically went soft. Look how Lalu and the Left serenaded Sonia after the 2004 victory, fending off the BJP’s attacks on her foreign origin. Now that Congress is perceived to be strong, they are trying another tack. They are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the Congress to trip before they play their hand.

The ones already in — DMK, Trinamool, NCP — are playing hardball in private while maintaining a non-belligerent public stance. This saves the Congress face, but the latter knows that these are the only allies left. It cannot bid goodbye to all of them. The Congress is strong in public perception, but weak in private reckoning.

The Manmohan-Sonia equation is a good one to analyse in this context. In 2004, they were both weak. Sonia didn’t have the mandate to call the shots politically. And Manmohan Singh was not the party’s choice for PM anyway.  Sonia needed someone who wouldn’t be too independent. Manmohan was happy to play along since he didn’t have anything to lose from it anyway. A weak-weak combo makes for modest expectations — and hence better perceived performance.

This is why the first Manmohan ministry of 2004-09 is seen as having delivered, though its real achievement is spending wastefully on pork-barrel schemes. In five boom years, the government reduced itself to bankruptcy. It now makes ends meet by heavy borrowing and printing currency notes.

Will Manmohan Mark II be any better? Will the Congress’ strong face lead to better governance, economic performance, and reforms? The answer is probably no — though I would be happy to be proved wrong. Strength does not always translate into better performance. In 1984, Rajiv Gandhi got more than 400 parliament seats. He achieved nothing. Narasimha Rao came to power in 1991 with less than a majority and an economy close to bankruptcy. He and Manmohan Singh launched the most breathtaking reforms India had ever seen.

The UPA, which now has enormous expectations swirling around it in view of its perceived strength, is, therefore, more likely to disappoint than deliver. The first signal came when Sonia declined Manmohan Singh’s preferred choice of finance minister: Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The last time she foisted Chidambaram on him because she was weak and Singh agreed not to press the point. This time, Singh knows she is more self-assured and cannot but acquiesce in her choice of Pranab Mukherjee. If a “strong” PM can’t even get the FM he wants, how can he get his ministers to listen to him?