India approaches Independence Day in the midst of a strange political season. The government appears listless, confused and completely devoid of a larger political message. If it is matched — actually, bettered — in its lack of direction and sheer vacuousness, it is only by the opposition.At one end, there is a ruling party desperately trying to rein in its coalition. At the other end, there is a former ruling party desperately trying to save its survival instincts from its coalition.Incumbency has its advantages, recent history notwithstanding, so begin with the ruling alliance. By now, all of India knows Manmohan Singh is a good and decent man. Those who didn’t have been duly informed as much by the usual time-servers, farmhouse pundits and Doordarshan desperados who’ve happily switched from Vajpayee’s poetry to Manmohan’s primness.That aside, heroic efforts at spin doctoring and single-source briefings have told us how the prime minister reacts, emotes, intuits, agonises. For instance, he removes ministers accused of murder not because homicide is a bad thing but because he (the prime minister) anguishes at the thought of being accused of protecting a criminal.In all this Manmohan ends up resembling more a character in a maudlin Munshi Premchand novel, less a decisive leader. Poor man. His party is the first to give the impression, sotto voce, that his prime ministry is a holding operation. Sit out the Bairam Khan interlude, wait for Akbar, the boy-king.Added to this are the competing impulses and imperatives of the Congress and its leading alliance partners, primarily Laloo Yadav and the Communists.Consider the much-promised ‘‘fresh’’ inquiry into the Godhra train incineration. Laloo’s already made up his mind. Some time before the Bihar assembly election in March 2005, his railway ministry will probably produce a report saying the fire at Godhra was an inside job, not caused by a Muslim mob at the platform but ignited from within by a Hindu.The Left will play along. A return to hardline secularism and pressure to dismiss the BJP government in Gujarat would suit it fine. Both Laloo and the Left Front in West Bengal used the Gujarat riots, video footage and all, to mobilise minority votes in the recent Lok Sabha election. Remixing the cocktail before assembly elections in both states would be entirely expected.Yet hardline secularism is an idea that gives the Congress the jitters. It could prove counter-productive in Maharashtra, which sees assembly elections in October 2004. Even in Gujarat, a senior Congress leader worries, ‘‘The last thing we need to do is make Narendra Modi some sort of martyr.’’Finally, of course, there’s economics. The Congress tells you the consumption-led growth of the past two years has failed. So there must be investment-led growth. That’s fine, but where will you get the money for that? From the consumption of the middle class, which will create a ‘‘multiplier effect’’ — in the old days, they called it ‘‘trickle down’’ but it means the same thing.If you’re confused by now, you’re not alone. Half the Congress’s economic whiz kids are as confused trying to explain a budget that discourages consumption.The budget’s message to the well-heeled Indian is: feel guilty about your credit card, don’t spend your money. Just wait for prices to rise, old chum, and for the government to tax the living daylights out of you.If that weren’t a recipe for demand crunch, the monsoon’s thoughtfully skipped India. Rural income calculations have gone awry.So if no one is going to buy anything, where is the surplus going to come from? What’s going to trigger growth? Isn’t next year’s economic survey going to be decidedly downcast?Ah, don’t worry, say the Congress boffins, wait for next year’s budget. All will be well. That’s the beauty of this government — it’s so focused on the future, on being marched to victory in the next election by a Rahul-Priyanka jugalbandi, it couldn’t give a damn about the present.Nevertheless, at least the Congress has a future to think about. On its part, the BJP is too busy contemplating the past. Sections of the party haven’t got over the ruling party blues. As such, they are seriously misreading the Manmohan government’s body clock.The Congress-led alliance is wobbly. The Left is on its own trip. There is the perception that even his ministers don’t take Manmohan seriously. Yet, there is no crisis. The government is not about to collapse. Its medium-term longevity — if a near oxymoron be permitted — is not in doubt.Unfortunately, not everyone in the BJP seems to think so. Some still believe, a nudge here and push there and this government can be brought down. That explains the brinkmanship in Parliament, usually reserved for an opposition’s final assault rather than opening manoeuvre.The BJP can meet, confer and confabulate in Mumbai, Goa, wherever. In the end, it has to answer a compelling question: is the NDA in effect dead?If the BJP’s still dreaming of some sort of coup, it can go on about expanding the NDA, trying to win over Mulayam Singh Yadav. Such an eventuality can only further marginalise the BJP’s own identity.Alternatively, it can recognise that it is time to go back to its cadre, find out why it is sulking, why six years in power created this awful gap between state-level workers and Delhi-based leaders.There is a third route. It is to let the NDA amble along to a slow demise. The Bihar election in early 2005 could signal the last rites. If, as is expected, the BJP-JD(U) alliance fails to dislodge Laloo raj after a decade (since the 1996 Lok Sabha election) of trying, the socialist-saffron alliance will be at a dead end.The JD(U) family will probably begin to disintegrate. Individuals will do private deals with Laloo or even the Congress. George Fernandes and the bulk will look to Mulayam and yet another ‘‘third front’’. The BJP will have to finally, inexorably go back to the drawing board.Now what if the Congress, clever-clever as ever, decides that’s the time for a national election?
