The stability bogey

Yes,there is a perception that the Centre does not hold. The Centre is to blame for that

Yes,there is a perception that the Centre does not hold. The Centre is to blame for that

Listen closely to the noise sparked off by Union Minister of Railways Dinesh Trivedis comments on mid-term polls,in the course of this papers Idea Exchange programme,and you can track the return of an older spectre. Trivedi,wearing the analysts hat,pointed out that the Congress-led Centre seems weakened and several regional parties that have gained in state elections would like to seize the moment to extend their footprint at the Centre. In response,the Congress has trotted out the outdated stability argument. All speculation of a mid-term poll undermines the stability of the Centre,says a Congress spokesperson,sternly,urging regional parties to mind their business and confine it to the states. Underlying this rebuke is a prejudiced equation that has no place in the era of the rise of regional parties and multi-party coalitions: that regionalism equals secessionism at worst and de-stabilisation at least.

The Congress needs to urgently do a reality check,rethink its worldview. Even though it refuses to institutionalise consultation with its allies,UPA 2 is a coalition. Admittedly,the Congress did better in 2009 in comparison to its performance in 2004,yet the support of the regional parties was crucial for it to reach the half-way mark. But the Congress needs to do more than merely remind itself about its numbers,or lack of them. For a brief while,in the 1990s,when it first became apparent that politics had shifted its primary locale to the states and single-party rule at the Centre may have yielded to coalitions for the foreseeable future,a palpable discomfort took hold in the public sphere. Slowly,the alarmist talk of stability-in-danger and fragmentation died down,to be replaced by the understanding that regional assertion and power-sharing at the Centre were the outcome of,and the trigger for,a deepening of Indias democracy. Parties had to acquaint themselves with the political change on the ground and many did so but not the Congress.

The Congress must rewind and listen to what Trivedi really said. Many of the stalled policy initiatives of UPA 2 may not have hit a dead-end,he said,if only the Congress had communicated with its regional allies. Instead of haughtily wagging its finger at them,the Congress needs to acknowledge its own responsibility for the perception gaining ground that the Centre does not hold.