Manmohan Singh has entered his third year in office as prime minister of India amidst an ominous sign of student unrest all over the country, triggered ostensibly by the controversy over reservations for other backward classes (OBCs) in higher institutes of learning. The agitation started by medical students in Delhi has attracted almost the entire medical fraternity, not just the students, and other professionals in many cities and towns in the country, making it look like a movement against the reservation policy as such. Clandestine support of at least one political party cannot be ruled out, though most political parties can ill-afford to openly support any anti-reservation agitation.
While the agitation may not end in an early demise of the UPA government the potential of danger from student unrest can never be underestimated. One of the reasons why the prime minister was able to survive all the attacks mounted by the opposition in the last two years was that none of the issues raised to roast him and his government had found an echo at a popular level. The BJP’s shenanigans in staying away from parliament, session after session, over the issue of ‘corruption’ and ‘criminalisation of politics’ etc did not impress the people who had seen in the six years of the BJP-led NDA rule that actually the ‘party with a difference’ was no different from other parties. Corruption and nexus with criminal elements was as much rampant in the BJP as in any other party.
The BJP failed to gun for the government on foreign policy issues like relations with the US, Pakistan and Nepal, because in each case its criticism lacked conviction. The protests that India was moving closer to the US looked hollow because when in power the BJP had showed itself to be more ardently pro-US than any other Indian political formation. The BJP’s tirade against the government’s failure to curb terrorism cut no ice with the people. BJP stalwarts had bent backwards to please the Taliban during the Indian Airlines hijack crisis of December 1999. And after the terrorist attack on Parliament, the Vajpayee government deployed the army at the international border for over a year but refused them permission to fire a single shot because of US pressure. Musharraf was courted publicly despite the failed Agra summit and Kargil war. BJP’s personalised campaign against Sonia Gandhi was decisively blunted two years ago.
But the students’ agitation on the reservation issues is in a different class. While the views of the agitating students on the reservation question can be supported or rejected, the manner in which the agitation itself snowballed into a countrywide campus movement does suggest that it was something of a spontaneous reaction. The reservation issue has struck a chord among almost the entire population. The pro- and anti- opinions are being openly aired at different platforms. It is true that Mandal agitation –II has not grown into the size of the Mandal stir –I when V.P. Singh was the prime minister. That is largely because Mandal –II is seen still as a campaign of HRD Minister Arjun Singh, and surprisingly, not as yet of the entire UPA government
It may be that, as on previous occasions, the prime minister will get over this crisis. But he would perhaps like to sail smoothly for a longer period, at least till the end of the five-year term of the UPA government, which is another three years away. And he may well achieve it even as the ‘Lauh Purush’ and all others in the BJP continue to repeat their old theme of ‘imminent’ fall of the ‘weakest’ government.
An opinion survey by a newspaper gave Manmohan Singh high ratings for performance though it did warn of serious consequences from the students’ agitation. The present coalition government has worked with far lesser problems than the previous coalition government. It is a surprising fact, considering that Manmohan Singh is actually no politician. Or, maybe, that (his not being a professional politician) is the secret of his government working without too many visible internal rumblings.
Contrary to predictions of many political pundits, the just-concluded polls in four state assemblies (and one union territory) have not upset the present equation at the Centre. These pundits had, as usual, predicted a sound thrashing of the Congress. Instead, that fate was reserved for the BJP. The outside supporters of the government, the Left parties, have apparently emerged as the largest winners, but the ‘worst’ that the prime minister can expect from them is a stronger veto against taking up certain economic reforms. An invigorated, post-poll Left will also be ‘barking’ more against getting closer to the US or towing a pro-US line in foreign policy.
These twin issues may retain the level of tension that undoubtedly already exists between the government and the Left, but it will certainly not lead to a break-up of relations, going by the repeated assertions made by the top Left leadership. Indeed, the government at the Centre might be able to derive some advantage from the Left’s own ambivalence on the reforms issue.
The core of Left’s economic agenda in West Bengal, authored by the state’s ‘pragmatic’ chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, does not look fundamentally different from the one that the Centre has adopted. In fact, the West Bengal line seems to have created some problems for the comrades in Kerala where a so-called hardliner of the old school has been installed as the chief minister against the wishes of powerful ‘pro-reform’ comrades who obviously think that replicating the Bengal line would be more beneficial to Kerala than pursuing the orthodox Marxist approach.
In the matter of foreign policy, Left’s words of caution against moving fully into the US camp finds support not only among opposition parties but also within the ruling party and its allies, though it may not have been acknowledged publicly. What will strengthen the ‘beware of the US’ call to the government is the manner in which Washington is seeking to incorporate new stipulations in the so-called civilian nuclear deal with India. The hyper activities of the non-proliferation lobby in the US in trying to abort the nuclear deal with India and the blatantly partisan manner in which this lobby overlooks Pakistan’s proven proliferation activities supports the belief in this country that the US is still not a reliable friend. It should be enough for the government to be warned against hugging the US too tightly.
Manmohan Singh knows it very well that traditionally India’s foreign policy has centred round national census, and so have most of the major domestic issues. If he wants to ensure longevity in office he will have to act by reading the pulse of the people with whom his honeymoon has continued. Yet, he will do well to remember that no honeymoon lasts forever.
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