On Tuesday before the crack of dawn, a passenger train rammed into a stationary freight train for reasons that still remain obscure, killing 25 passengers in their sleep, 16 of them charred to death. 

As dawn broke, the national airline Air India entered the 15th day of its shutdown with the pilots refusing to fly the aircraft. The day mutely witnessed the Indian Rupee falling at a frantic pace to its lowest-ever depth in history, which prompted Reuters to raise the specter of a Greek-style crisis in the economy. 

By afternoon, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims from the holy shrine of Badrinath in the Himalayas plunged into the Ganges river killing at least 26 of them. Tuesday was an unhappy day – certainly, not a day to celebrate. 

Yet, the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh went ahead with the plans to celebrate its third anniversary. It was an act defying omens. Dr. Singh held a lavish dinner at his official residence. He even read out an account of how well the government has done, which included:

• 7 percent growth rate of the economy;

• Declining poverty rate;

• Record food grain production; 

• Agricultural loans for 27.5 million farmers;

• Rural employment guarantee scheme reaches one in every 5 households;

• Health indicators such as infant mortality rate showing continuous decline;

• Nearly half-a-million new classrooms and 51000 new primary schools opened and 680000 new teachers recruited during the past two years; 

• Fast-growing telecom market;

• Additional new power generation capacity of 20000 MW created last year;

• Test launch of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile and all-weather imaging satellite.

Dr. Singh added that nonetheless there is a “large unfinished agenda” for the government and he noted with humility the “public anger against corruption”. He took note of the challenges facing the economy: 

• Need to take tough measures on “spending and resource mobilization”;

• Need for all-round fiscal prudence;

• Improving the investment climate;

• Pressures on the balance of payments; 

• Issues of land acquisition, resettlement;

• Environment;

• Need to build more storage capacity for food grains;

• Minimizing food grain wastage.

Identity politics

Dr. Singh was candid and appeared introspective. The list of achievements looks impressive. But Dr. Singh ends up looking tired, giving the appearance of a battered boxer. How did this happen? 

Corruption and high inflation in the economy have become the two major issues that have worn down Dr. Singh’s government. Somehow, the narrative has come to be that the ruling Congress Party is the embodiment of corruption, no matter the party’s indignant protests that other parties too have dirt in their fingernails or that the sleaze and corruption has a history of being rooted in India’s political economy. Again, no one seems to be listening to the government’s reasoning that attributes the high inflation in the economy to mainly the increase in global commodities as well as crude oil prices. Somehow, the impression has formed that this is an elitist government. 

There has been all-round criticism of the performance of the government as it completes 3 years in office with the economic reforms running into headwinds. However, paradoxically, it is also difficult to put the entire blame on the Congress Party leadership or Dr. Singh. 

The dismal truth is that that there is no surety that things could be any better even if this government steps down or the Congress Party itself is compulsorily disbanded. The main opposition party Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] is in great disarray and there is little likelihood of it reviving as a credible force to lead the next coalition government. The right-wing Hindu party lacks ideological clarity and cohesion, its leaders have become vain and quarrelsome and self-seeking and many are involved in corruption. It almost becomes a mirror image of the Congress minus the Congress’s positive virtues. 

The heart of the matter is that the secular-minded national parties in India are in a state of decline – not only the centrist Congress Party but also the ideological Left parties. They have been struggling to hold on to the ideals of India’s secular democracy, which are based on western concepts. But they are steadily losing ground to identity politics based on caste/class/religious consciousness in large tracts of India. 

In sum, what passes for the failings of the present government led by Congress are in large measure also the signs of a crisis enveloping India’s democracy. The general election in 2014 can only throw up yet another coalition government built around Congress or the BJP. In fact, things could get worse if Congress Party gets reduced in size, with the country facing the probability of a preponderant presence of what are called “regional parties”, namely, political parties that do not have a national standing but are essentially the progenies of identity politics. 

There is nothing abhorrent per se if the socially disadvantaged sections of the population consolidate their struggle for justice and equity. Identity politics has relevance in India. The progress of the country is linked to social mobility. The southern states have shown this by surging ahead in development. However, the robust growth of identity politics in the recent years supplanting the national parties constitutes a highly disconcerting trend. 

Prima facie, it may seem a new phase of Indian federalism characterized by the progressive spirit of democratization, but in actuality the undercurrents are reactionary. What is happening is that the Congress and the Left parties alike are in a state of paralysis, confounded by the challenge of countering identity politics that has borne out of the awakening of the oppressed caste and social categories in big states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which form the fulcrum of Indian democracy. The Left has been completely decimated in these two crucial states while Congress finds itself in a state of inexorable decline. 

The most unfortunate part is that the political forces based on identity politics that are on the ascendancy have also taken with gusto to corruption and the venal practices of aggrandizement of power. Besides, they are often found challenging India’s delicately balanced federal structure by assertively flaunting their newfound political clout in the fragmented polity. The strong likelihood is that for the foreseeable future, India may be in a state of drift with the coalition governments at the centre rendered dysfunctional by the so-called regional parties. 

Wishful thinking

The only way out is a coming together of the secular-minded national parties through a pooling of their strength, which could form a hard core dominating any coalition government at the national level and could offer political stability and purposiveness to governance. An experiment of this sort was attempted during the period of the last government (also headed by Dr. Singh), which was in power during the period 2003-2009. Curiously, the experiment worked rather well for almost 4 years and it might not have broken down eventually but for Dr. Singh’s obduracy to push ahead with India’s nuclear deal with the United States in 2008. 

But it seems mere wishful thinking that the 2003-2008 experiment repeats – unless there is willingness to have a profound rethink on the part of both the Congress and the Left, which seems unlikely (at least, as things stand). One problem is that the ideological proximity between the Left and the Congress has steadily diminished due to the latter’s right-wing drift toward neo-liberal economic policies. On the other hand, Congress committed a grave error of judgment by being instrumental – although, it apparently gained nothing out of it for itself – in the ending of the 30-year rule of the Left parties in their citadel of West Bengal, by submitting itself as the junior partner to the regional party Trinamool Congress. 

This dismal scenario leaves the Left with the option of forming a “Third Front” of secular-minded regional parties. The idea is unworkable since the regional parties have by now gotten used to their bargaining strength (individually and collectively) and do not see any particular advantage in aligning with the Left. The Congress Party, too, is caught on the horns of the same dilemma as the Left. Both deride identity politics as divisive and in principle oppose it. But they also readily succumb to the temptations of “vote bank” politics and are willing to appease the regional parties. Indeed, this doublespeak can only bring temporary advantage of cobbling together a majority government and to seize power, and employ the extensive patronage system that power commands. 

Thus, as dusk was falling, the high table at Dr. Singh’s grand dinner party was filled by some of India’s powerful regional satraps who might be of use for the Congress Party to elect a new president for India at the election due in August, and to put in place recalcitrant allies such as Trinamool. The overpowering sense is of déjà vu. The omens do not look good.