The Struggle to Govern in India

...DARRYL D'MONTE frequently writes on Indian affairs for The New Leader Before the Front chose as Prime Minister the JD head of Karnataka...

...Gowda's initial task was to pick Cabinet members who would both perform their duties competently and keep the various factions among the UF's 13 parties happy...

...After 13 ignominious days spent issuing obiter dicta on sundry matters, however...

...Because no one else would be likely to unite with the BJP in the event of a second inconclusive election, the United Front has some breathing space...

...A COALITION is not just a mech-anism for government, it's a JL JLculture" theCPI-M's Basu advised Gowda and his Cabinet on the eve of their being sworn in...

...After some false starts, it is showing signs of coming to grips with the task of governing the world's most populous democracy...

...Minister of Home Affairs, was entrusted to the CPI's Indra-jit Gupta...

...Ramakrishna Hegde, a senior figure from Gowda's own state, was thrown out of the party after bad-mouthing the Federal government...

...Junior Home Minister Mohammad Taslimuddin had to resign when it was revealed that he had a criminal record in his home state of Bihar...

...And sure enough, Gupta has already made several gaffes, forcing Gowda to engage in some quick damage control...

...Younger colleagues prevailed upon Basu to decline the post because it would harm the CPI-M's radical image, but the party is a UF member...

...President Shankar Dayal Sharma scrupulously observed protocol and invited the party's leader, Atal Be-hari Vajpayee, to form a government...

...Not that the Left was alone in its criticism...

...H. D. Deve Gowda, then virtually unknown outside his state, one of the other people it considered was West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu...

...It sent a clear signal to foreign investors attracted by the economic liberalization launched under Rao's Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, that the policy would be continued...

...The less powerful and more moderate Communist Party of India (CPI) has not hesitated to join the government...

...Two Left-wing ministers who kept mum during the Cabinet's discussion of these hikes openly criticized them afterward, with one eye squarely on their own constituents...

...In December 1992—in one stroke—the BJP shattered the national consensus in an exceedingly diverse society by encouraging Hindu fundamentalists to destroy a Muslim shrine at Ayo-dhya...

...President Sharma invited the National Front-Left Front, led by the Janata Dal (JD), to form a government...

...Most impressively, the national budget, presented by Chidambaram in June, was a masterful document that somehow managed to assuage everyone from Left to Right...

...So far he has portrayed himself as a poor farmer who rose to the top through circumstances beyond his control...

...Gowda has exhibited an admirable firmness, too, in refusing to kowtow to the influential Defense Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh anxious to bring in people from his home state...

...Still worse...

...Riots ensued and the Bharatiya Janata Party fell from grace in Uttar Pradesh...

...In sum, Gowda has adopted a common minimum program stressing federalism, transparency in administration and a people-friendly government...

...Maybe, but the mechanism appears to require constant lubrication and the culture would undoubtedly be better maintained by more sophisticated officials than are evident at present...

...Its pariah status arose from being seen as ready to go to any lengths to assert its majoritarian dogma, a reputation it earned while governing the ethnically mixed state of Uttar Pradesh...

...Rao had simply put off the unpopular move because it would have adversely affected not only India's minuscule number of car owners but a wide range of goods that must be transported by road...

...Within the Janata Dal itself, meanwhile, tremors have been occurring with dismaying regularity...

...The urbane character made no secret of his belief that he would have made a far more appropriate Prime Minister...

...During those two weeks not a single party was willing to link up with the BJP —despite the chance to secure key ministries and other rewards...

...Perhaps the most important result of this spring's general elections, though, is that the electorate, often written off by commentators as illiterate and ignorant, effectively changed the nation's political landscape...

...This came to the surface just before the annual budget was presented in June, when the Federal government raised the price of gas 25 per cent and of petroleum-related products up to 30 per cent...

...But when the final returns were tallied the big winner in the Lok Sabha, Parliament's 545-member lower house, was the Right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP...

...Both the Right-wing BJP and the Centrist Congress Party, as well as other regional UF allies, strongly opposed the increase...

...The balloting was put off to the last possible minute by Prime Minister P. V Narasimha Rao...

...The hastily cobbled together United Front may appear amateurish, but it might just survive for a year or so—until it begins to pull in too many different directions...

...India's new Prime Minister, the first from the South, knows little about the perils of presiding over a factionally divided, politically volatile country...

...This selection raised eyebrows, since his party has never run a state government...

...That he did...

...Although even with its traditional marginal allies the BJP has only a plurality of 195 seats...

...But no pundit here is betting the United Front will last the full five-year term...

...Following the BJP's fleeting tenure...

...A conglomeration of 13 parties (six of whom are in the Cabinet), it controls 180 seats...

...Nor does he speak Hindi, the lingua franca, which he has promised to learn...

...But differences in economic philosophy among UF adherents have had a more serious consequence: The government was forced to reverse wage freezes and other austerity measures for state-owned undertakings after Left-wingers viciously attacked them...

...On the positive side, Gowda has successfully revamped a centralized government structure that had required all decisions to be approved by the Prime Minister's office...

...Nothing less is necessary than the skill to mediate the apparent incongruity of the coalition relying partly on two Communist parties for support, yet swearing allegiance to the free market...

...They thus brought to an end the era of all-embracing Centrist national governments...

...The truth happens to be that the rupee's 65 per cent pre-election depreciation against the dollar made it inevitable...

...Had either the Congress or short-lived BJP government remained in power, they would eventually have had to impose the same measures...

...These inept choices have underscored the coalition's lack of experience...

...In fact, Chidambaram had been Rao's Commerce Minister...

...The heavy odor of corruption, in fact, was the main reason for Congress' embarrassing electoral performance...

...who hoped his foundering Congress Party would have time to benefit from low inflation rates and other favorable economic conditions...

...Its only real competition would be the Congress Party, and at the moment it is deeply mired in its own problems: Rao was recently named a codefendant in a case involving a London-based Indian pickle magnate's attempt to win a government newsprint contract in 1983.Several of his colleagues also figure in a list kept by a scamster who bribed ruling and opposition politicians to obtain contracts for powerprojects and the like...

...This modesty is disarming, yet it is also unsettling at a time when strong leadership is called for...

...Its constituent base is now confined to the North and West...

...Her transgression was accusing the government of acting in a "furtive manner" when it approved the construction of a massive power plant in Karnataka by Cogentrix, a U.S...

...Another key slot...

...The 81 -year-old veteran of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CP1-M), highly regarded as an intellectual and an incorruptible politician, has tempered his doctrinaire views to keep in tune with market-friendly policies introduced by Narasimha Rao...

...Parliamentary deputy Maneka Gandhi, the controversial sister-in-law of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, similarly had to quit the JD...

...Long eager to usher in a "Hindu raj" (rule), it maintains that India's majority community has been taken for granted, while minorities (read Muslims) have been pampered by successive Congress administrations to create a reliable vote bank...

...A DELICATE ALLIANCE The Struggle to Govern in India BY DARRYL D'MONTE BOMBAY TO EVERYONE'S surprise India's "rainbow" coalition, confirmed on June 12, has not merely avoided the stillbirth fate of its immediate predecessor...

...Ministers are now free to make decisions and simply keep the office informed about them...

...Vajpayee decided to resign rather than face certain rejection in a vote of confidence...

...In addition, his doing so was a major reason why his regime was able to keep inflation in check...

...By and large voters sent to New Delhi representatives from the dominant party in each state...

...But the once indomitable Congress Party, down to less than half its previous strength at 140 seats, agreed to back the bloc—newly dubbed the United Front (UF)—from the outside...

...His naming Harvard-trained lawyer P. Chidambaram Finance Minister was a step in the right direction...