Jumbo-sized paradox

It's a paradox of democracy. If one was inclined to believe that wafer-thin majorities on the floor of the House would keep the government...

It’s a paradox of democracy. If one was inclined to believe that wafer-thin majorities on the floor of the House would keep the government of the day honest, ever alert to the danger of opposition members heeding the wishes of a watchful electorate to go for the kill if the regime deviated from the people’s mandate, think again. The neverending oath-taking ceremony in Patna as Rabri Devi’s ministry swelled to accommodate 81 other members is a pointer to the debilitating distortions that the coalition era is inflicting on India’s polity.

The likes of Rabri Devi (and Kalyan Singh before her) would in their own defence argue that their exertions have been aimed at providing reasonably stable governance in the event of acutely fractured mandates. So they may, they have the rule book on their side. But the installation of an 82-member Council of Ministers offers the beleaguered people of Bihar ominous portents of things to come. A regime constructed on the cynical pursuit of the spoils of office can hardly be expected to now singlemindedly attempt to usher in a different future.

In this entire drama, the Congress’s role has been bewildering in the extreme. Perhaps Salman Rushdie encapsulated it best in Haroun and the Sea of Stories: "There are no half measures for us. We careen headlong from ecstasy to hatred with nary a thought for cause or consequences. Our spectrum has only black and white. There is no space for any shades of grey." Accordingly, over the last couple of years the Congress has lurched from one extreme to the other, from supporting the RJD in the Bihar legislature to declaring that Rabri Devi had lost the moral right to continue in office. And in seeking to gain high office for each of its 23 MLAs one was already elevated to speakerhood, another in sulking after being denied a position in the Cabinet, a third was absent on account of bereavement, and the rest have already begun life as aides to Rabri Devi the Congress’s love-hate affair with Laloo Prasad Yadav and his spouse has entered a dark phase.

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In effect, it has lent a sepia tint to its fortnight old Common Minimum Programme (CMP) drawn up with the RJD. Once the Congress decided on entering into a post-poll alliance with the RJD, the CMP seemed like a silver lining, given the overwhelming emphasis accorded to good governance and administration, as too the promised induction of technocrats to help the state embark on a long overdue development programme. The gamble of being tainted by RJD misrule, it was eloquently argued, would be more than compensated by the guidance and technocratic inputs offered by the Congress.

And this newspaper agreed. But by ensuring that all its MLAs are ensconced in ministerial offices, the party has coolly forgotten its pre-condition that key portfolios be reserved for experts. Whatever be the compulsions of offering carrots to its frisky legislators, the Congress must endeavour to salvage its reputation that now at least some measure of the good governance it spoke of so loftily is delivered to the people. Otherwise, the repercussions could extend beyond Bihar’s borders.

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