Know your enemy

The Congress prides itself on the fact that, unlike the parties on its Right and Left, it is more politically flexible, the lack of a doctrinaire ideology being a virtue. The party should take a reality check. And it should start by noting that the Left seems to have little problem this Parliament session in being seen to be having a common purpose with the BJP on the issue of a parliamentary resolution on the nuclear deal. These are two parties who abuse each other with such tedious regularity that their mutual recriminations have become one of the most boring facts of Indian politics. Yet the Left can cherrypick issues where it can work with the BJP. And the BJP is quite happy to reciprocate.

In fact, the Left has done it before. It took the stand that keeping Bofors-tainted Rajiv Gandhi out was important enough to allow a joint political venture with the BJP. V.P. Singh wouldn8217;t have been prime minister otherwise. The Left had supported the Akalis against Indira Gandhi8217;s Congress. Countering her authoritarianism was good reason for the Marxists to ignore the fact that the Akalis are really natural political cousins of the quasi-religious Right. The BJP has done it, too. It sought out the Congress a number of times during the NDA8217;s rule to try and get key legislation passed. Some BJP chief ministers have seen in the Left a model of how to beat incumbency.

If this is hypocrisy, it is the kind of hypocrisy politics sometimes needs. And it is the kind of hypocrisy that doesn8217;t come to the Congress easily. Mind you, the party is perfectly comfortable with other more egregious demonstrations of political adjustment. Perhaps, the Congress8217;s poor record on working with political rivals on specific issues is a reflection of its love affair with its past. After all it was not until the most recent general election, the one in 2004, that the Congress could even think of a coalition. Compulsions of winning power forced that change. Since strategic, issue-based alliances lack the all-powerful incentive of winning power, the Congress is content to pretend that in such cases everyone must come to it; it doesn8217;t need to reach out. This is not quite smart, as the Congress may find out this Parliament session.