Cabinet breakers

When Manmohan Singh observed that Congress allies were a party to the government’s decisions on the nuclear deal, he was restating what is no longer obvious in politics. Collective responsibility has become a bit of a joke in coalition politics, and perhaps never more so than during the UPA’s term. What better example than Karunanidhi saying he always had a problem with the nuclear deal. If he did, and he’s free to do so, he should have told cabinet ministers from his party to strongly communicate the view to the prime minister. That would have given the government good warning about the political feasibility of the deal. But all the months that the deal had become a political football between the Congress and the Left, UPA allies never indicated, in any fashion, that any of them had a policy issue. It is grossly unethical for allies to say, openly or off the record, that they were always against the 123 agreement. They were in the cabinet and the cabinet passed the text. This principle has to mean something and if it continues to be trivialised in this fashion, serious governance issues will come up.

Typically, powerful regional parties seem the most keen to treat collective responsibility as irrelevant. The point is not that, as many excessively political correct commentators observe, regional parties shouldn’t have a say. But that they must say it at proper forums. Cabinet decisions cannot be brushed aside whenever a satrap finds it politically convenient. It is bad enough that these days the prime minister cannot appoint many of his cabinet ministers — the regional satrap picks those to be rewarded. Remember how Karunanidhi announced the replacement of Dayanidhi Maran, who quit, by the way, not because the PM was displeased with him but because his family was. At least the announcement of his successor could have been left to the prime minister’s office.

But, and this is what makes it especially difficult for the PM, cavalier treatment of cabinet principles is not a speciality of allies. Congress cabinet ministers have done it, too. On Narmada, on education, on the general principle of economic reform, on SEZs, senior Congress ministers have boldly staked out positions that are either at variance with the government’s or which didn’t wait for the government to work out a policy.