Gender makes for strange bedfellows! Yesterday's political untouchables have become today's huggables! So, Brinda Karat, the Marxist, happily holds the hands of Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Gender rights have demonstrated the ability to unite what other principles have long separated, and divide what pragmatism has long united. Thus, in the same TV frame in which the two ladies were all smiles, the sullen Mamata Banerjee was trying to free herself from the Congress party's embrace.
Politics is, of course, the art of the possible but what seemed impossible barely a year ago, the coming together of the Right and the Left, was achieved with consummate artistry in this Budget session of Parliament. Rising petrol prices ignited new political passions that then found unreserved expression on the Women's Reservation Bill. In this era of multipolarity, the end of BJP's 'untouchability' opens up new possibilities.
That apart, all the non-Congress parties had one thing on mind when they adopted their varying postures on the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. They wanted to teach the Congress party a simple lesson in political arithmetic: that 206 is less than 272!
Allies and opponents alike have been uncomfortable with the post-election hubris of the Congress party and its leadership. While the Congress party claimed victory and its president Sonia Gandhi called women journalists into the hallowed premises of her home and office to take credit, the fact remained that it was the coming together of Swaraj and Karat that gave Gandhi a reason to smile!
Why was Karat willing to hold Swaraj's hands a year before elections in West Bengal and Kerala? Because the BJP is not a factor in either state? Because the Communist Party of India - Marxist thinks it will gain from women voters what it may lose among the Muslim minority? What explains the political realignments in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, apart from the supposed self-confidence of the Congress party that is willing to jettison allies without numbers?
Last week has raised more questions about Indian politics than it has answered. Was it merely Congress party president Sonia Gandhi's whim and whip that turned the coalition kaleidoscope or are the underlying political tectonic plates shifting? Some answer may come out of how different parties deal with this Bill in the Lok Sabha.
Why is politics back in command in an essentially non-political year? In a Budget session, most expected the King to be in the counting-house, counting out his money, and the Queen to be in her parlour eating bread and honey. So, how come the nursery rhyme got changed and everyone was singing ring-a-ring-a roses?!
If the Karat-Swaraj tango was not just a one-session stand but a shape of things to come, should we expect to see a re-alignment of the first (National Democratic Alliance), second (United Progressive Alliance) and third fronts? Surely, it is too early in the tenure of this government for anyone to even speculate along such lines. Congress party strategists would have calculated, and correctly so, that with a solid base of 206 members in the Lok Sabha, the party can withstand any attempt to destabilise the present government, despite some of the self goals it has scored.
The outcome of the Bihar assembly elections later this year will not make any difference to the government in Delhi. The possibility of a Sharad Pawar- Bal Thackeray government in Mumbai appears remote, and it would be a crown of thorns for Pawar. He has let it be known that he will not destabilise a Manmohan Singh government in Delhi. Nor will Banerjee. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress party holds all the cards even if it has shied away from using them.
It is precisely because the government is so stable that there are so many trying to destabilise it! Keep the government off balance a bit so that it doesn't get too bold! That is what the Pakistanis like to do with India. Keep it off balance! That is what the Americans do with all other major powers. Keep them all off balance. Coalition partners don't like self-confident governments.
Those who lament that the politics of UPA-II's first year in office has produced a less assertive government than in UPA-I base their argument on this perspective. This would partly explain this year's Budget being good but not good enough. A bolder Budget, in terms of fiscal stabilisation and economic reform, was expected by those who thought an electorally re-empowered Congress party with no major elections in sight would use the opportunity to do things it has not so far.
It remains to be seen if the Congress party will reach out to the BJP and the Left on economic, foreign policy and national security issues in the same way it has on the Women's Reservation Bill. It is unlikely to, also because the Left and the BJP may not be willing to play ball on other policy issues as they did on this Bill.
Moreover, both the Left and the BJP may get more aggressive in months to come, having noted that the Congress party's allies are uncomfortable with the ruling party's new assertiveness.
The Congress party, like the United States, still dreams of those heady days of political unipolarity, when kitchen cabinets cooked policy. Despite running a successful coalition, thanks to the wisdom and patience of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress party is finding it difficult to come to terms with the multipolarity of Indian politics.
Every one of the other political parties has, therefore, a stake in reminding the Congress party that politics in India remains multipolar and we are still in the 'era of coalitions'.
