Commentary/Venu Menon

Somewhere between puppet and matador, Gujral the diplomat has to find an operating perch

A new United Front government is now in place. Inder Kumar Gujral has succeeded H D Deve Gowda, the Congress has renewed its pledge of support, and continuity has been restored at the Centre.

But the euphoric constituents of the UF coalition cannot ignore an embarrassing postscript: the party that was instrumental in the demise of the first government also presided over its resurrection and rebirth.

It is significant that the present government, reincarnated under a new leader, needed the Congress president's approval before it approached the President of the Republic.

To that extent, Shankar Dayal Sharma's acknowledgment of the Congress-UF claim to provide a stable government is purely an act of faith. There are no guarantees built into the new arrangement to ensure a greater degree of longevity to the Gujral government over the predecessor regime.

The collapse of the Deve Gowda ministry emphasised the cliff-hanger existence of a minority government sustained on support from outside. The life support system of the present government is not appreciably different. It has only the Congress president's word to go on.

Kesri thinks Gujral is a pleasant chap who will not provoke him like Deve Gowda did. On this rests the edifice of the 14-member coalition that has acquired a new lease to run the country.

Does it mean the prime minister will have to take a mood-check of the Congress president each time he makes a policy decision or embarks on a course of action? The government's decisions will not be viewed with gravity. How credible can its foreign policy initiatives be if, say, Pakistan negotiators cock an eye in the direction of the Congress president to decipher the signals emanating from him? What is the status in such circumstances of the negotiating team articulating the government's view in any bilateral exchange?

The coordination committee conceived to pre-empt tensions that may arise in the Congress-UF interface is rudderless from the outset, simply because no one is sure what caused the Kesri-Gowda rupture in the first place. In any case, the Congress president and the prime minister will not address each other on even ground. The terms of the dialogue will tilt in favour of the supporting party.

The forum is intended to serve as a bridge between the government and the supporting party, but how useful it will be in sorting out the chemistry between individuals is open to doubt.

If a provision binding the supporting party to its commitment to extend unconditional support to a minority government does not exist, it will have to be created. The President is invested with the authority to initiate the process. Dr Sharma has preferred not to invoke the statutory authority vested in his office to curb the practice of whimsical politics the nation has witnessed these past weeks.

Now that the Congress has demonstrated its damage potential, the Gujral government is in danger of reducing itself to a ventriloquist's doll if it is overmindful of Congress compulsions. At the same time, it cannot afford to wave the red cape of provocation. Somewhere between puppet and matador, Gujral the diplomat has to find an operating perch.

Even as the new prime minister makes his policy pronouncements assuring industry of a pro-reforms thrust and Pakistan of good neighbourliness, he is clueless about the supporting party's hidden agenda. The big question that heralded the rebirth of the UF government was whether the Congress would stake its claim to participation. The ambiguous phrasing of Kesri's letter to the President left room for doubt in many minds. No one is ready to bet that the Congress, content to remain outside at present, will not exploit the stability plank and worm its way into the government at a later stage.

The Tamil Manila Congress's sense of alienation has broken the solidarity of the Federal Front. The four regional parties -- the TMC, Telugu Desam Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and Asom Gana Parishad -- have a combined strength of 59 in the Lok Sabha and constitute a decisive power bloc within the ruling coalition.

TMC chief G K Moopanar had counted on the Federal Front to back him wholeheartedly in his bid for the prime minister's post. Instead he received token support from M Karunanidhi and Chandrababu Naidu which did not give him the edge in the race. The DMK leader may have been guided by compulsions of realpolitik. Moopanar emerging as the prime minister would result in a loss of stature for Karunanidhi in Dravidian politics. And TDP's Chandrababu Naidu, doubling as UF convener, could not put the Federal Front above the United Front.

But it is the Left alliance -- the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc -- that is currently shaking up the governing coalition. It called the TMC chief a closet Congressmen which provoked the party to relinquish its participatory role in the UF. The Left wants to dictate the composition of the coordination committee, which has rankled the Congress. And it is inciting Deve Gowda to adopt an insurrectionist posture against the UF leadership.

If the disturbances within the UF intensify, the prime minister stands to become a peripheral entity within the ruling coalition. He will find it difficult to police the anarchy. His quest for consensus will be thwarted. His peace making skills will be sorely tested. The Gujral doctrine is in crisis.

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