Coalition dhar- ma has been pretty much the buzzword this last week. In the present UPA-Left arrangement at the Centre, more than the pros and cons of the Indo-US nuke deal, this holds relevance as part of a debate on which side is doing its bit to adhere to the principles of coalition etiquette.
Democracies work in different ways. The US and UK have effective two-party systems. Italy has its own rocky and unstable version of coalition democracy. And countries like Switzerland and The Netherlands have their own relatively manageable versions of multi-party politics. But as a former PM put it back in 1996, when we were being ushered into our latest coalition era, this was an occasion to cheer, as India?s ?social coalitions were being mirrored by its politics?.
Yet, coalitions actually celebrate 40 years of their existence this year in India. Though states like Kerala and Orissa did experience some form of coalitions even earlier, India?s era of coalitions in state politics began in earnest in 1967, when the Congress lost its stranglehold over state assemblies for the first time after Independence. Then, the anti-Congress plank provided the main impetus for coalitions, be it in Bihar, Punjab, UP or Bengal. Since then, Kerala has seen face-offs between two coalitions. The longest serving CM in India to date, Jyoti Basu, set his record as the leader of a coalition, cutting his teeth as West Bengal?s home minister in the late 1960s under CM Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress before taking a coalition of Left parties to six consecutive victories. But while that was a difficult feat to achieve, the intra-coalition wrestling was easier. It was between like-minded parties. The challenge always comes in doing business with parties that do not swear by your principles.
In 1977, India?s first non-Congress government at the Centre was enabled by a broad formation of anti-Congress forces assembled under the Janata Party banner. But tugs and tussles, some of them ideological, within the arrangement?with a shove from clashing egos and political inexperience?pushed the government out of power.
In 1996, the United Front, which took its name from state coalitions, took office on the ?social justice? plank and had somewhat similar social groups backing it, with the Left and Congress supporting the coalition from the outside. This was when the BJP realised that achieving power on its own would be difficult, and cast its the net wide open to all, hoping to trawl together a coalition of its own. It even netted the so-called Socialist-inspired regional groupings, the DMK and TDP, and won over that old symbol of Indian Socialism, George Fernandes, before attaining power in 1998 as the leader of the NDA coalition. The BJP?s PM then, Atal Behari Vajpayee, masterfully managed contradictions within his own party, the Sangh Parivar and some 24 allies to ensure that a non-Congress coalition survived a full term of five years in office, the first time ever in independent India.
And what of the current UPA coalition? Like the NDA, it too is a leap of faith for both the Congress and the Left. Under Rajiv Gandhi, in 1989, the Congress had declined the offer to form a government with just 190 seats, and now the party is leading a coalition with even fewer seats. Plenty of fuss is made of the Left not joining the coalition, though few realise just how much the communists have changed in their acceptance of the ?bourgeois? Congress as a partner.
Now, it is a question of watching how these first-timers do business with one another. Does the nuance of every decision get bared in public? Is the PM conveying messages to close allies via interviews in his own version of Truth or Dare? For the Congress, surviving a full term as a coalition leader is critical to its self-perception of a sensitive and accommodative party. Else, Vajpayee may just have the last laugh.