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Journalism of Courage
Staunchly liberal about individual choice, we tend to be somewhat conservative about political/institutional relationships. Hence our devout wish that a particular live-in political relationship be given the sanctity of marriage: the Left should tie the institutional knot with the Congress and move in to the government. The main reason to bless this union is the nature and number of out-of-wedlock decisions. The latest of these is the Left clearing moderate disinvestment of profit-making, non-navaratna PSUs. If this is to be the government8217;s policy, and if this was arrived at as a compromise between the Congress8217;s and the Left8217;s points of view, the whole process would have been faster, more mature and less fractious had Left ministers been fighting within.
The same holds not only for most other economic reform issues, but also for social and foreign policies. Why have so many ex post meetings, threats and anonymous hatchet job briefings on Iran, when Left members of the Cabinet could have resisted the policy ex ante? The proposed nuptials can8217;t be opposed on grounds that the partners have fights when they travel out of New Delhi. Coalition politics is, or must be, an evolving art. Bihar, a fine laboratory for so many other political experiments, has shown state-level electoral adversaries can govern together at the Centre or be part of the same central political structure. Ram Vilas Paswan and Laloo Prasad Yadav are exemplars of the first, the CPM and CPI 8212; they fought in different political blocs in Bihar 8212; those of the second. The Left can, therefore, join the Congress in formally governing the country even if political realities demand battles in Bengal, Kerala, Tripura or elsewhere. The key phrase here is political reality.
