It is the new Saturday Club. Each week it brings together the two most powerful persons in the ruling dispensation. Each week they will pore over a labyrinthine of priorities set forth in the UPA’s common minimum programme. Along with Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will sit in assessment on the progress made by his government in meeting the objectives set forth in the wordy and voluminous CMP. The Saturday rendezvous at 7 Race Course Road is, of course, just one of a series of regular appointments planned to check that the Manmohan Singh government is kept to the straight and narrow of the CMP. Every three months Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council will meet to perform its prime task, to check the progress made on the CMP. And every month the coordination committee of the UPA will convene to sort out political niggles and, well, one supposes to glance at the CMP.The UPA government has completed more than a month in office on the wings of many hopes and widely resonant promises. Alas, it could find itself flailing for clarity in an alphabet soup. One problem could be the CMP — it reads like a mission statement, but is being sought to be used as an agenda for governance. In a perfect world — and, perhaps, in an UPSC examination — one could locate solutions to all of India’s challenges and troubles in its wordy passages. In the here and now, however, governments need latitude for manoeuvre and innovation to deliver on the social and economic aims that presumably guided the CMP’s authors. To keep the Manmohan Singh government bound by the text could, therefore, amount to betraying the context in which it operates.In his address to the nation, the prime minister spoke of reforming government. It is a long overdue task. Flabby bureaucracy, excessive red tape, and circuitous procedures have for far too long hampered governance and decision-making. It is unfortunate, then, that he is giving in to governance by committee. As if the NAC and the UPA’s coordination committees were not enough, the president’s address announced a series of commissions to find ways and means to deliver on the CMP’s promises. The plan to solicit opinions from experts and activists is healthy — but to institutionalise their role could beat the purpose.
