Coalition governments become lame ducks when the right person does not get the right job. In principle, it makes sense to have representatives of different parties, mouthing various ideologies, as part of the ruling collective, but when the head of that conglomerate cannot choose who should be responsible for what, the entire edifice ceases to be effective. In the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, the choice of M.S. Gill as the minister for agriculture would have ensured some sane correctives in the agricultural sector, which has been sidelined and neglected for decades. Equally, at a time when climate change and other horrors are about to afflict us, the portfolio of science and technology should have been clubbed with the environment ministry, with Kapil Sibal in the chair, to create an autonomous body, like the Indian Tourism Development Corporation, to handle all policies pertaining to the national wildlife.

The fragile reality where, to keep the coalition intact, the ruling party and its chief executive, the prime minister, cannot stall wrong decisions and where the bureaucracy reigns supreme, playing its cards in a vulnerable political state, can only indicate a failed political dispensation. All critical areas are crying out in despair for strong decisions that would put things gone awry back on track. Today, the babu has managed well to emasculate the political bosses.With deft manipulation, mouthing of half-truths, cases held up for self-serving ends, the once-upon-a-time steel frame of bureaucracy has now successfully confused and debilitated the ministers in the government. The new and different sense of political power of the babus stems from the fact that many ministers are not on top of their jobs.

Doing nothing

The politicians who are in command of their ministries and use their babus to ensure the implementation of policies are demoted, publicly criticized by their servile-in-office-but-wolves-at-social-gatherings officers. Stories from the corridors of power are laced with exaggerations and then released to the media by the babu who finds this an easy way to ensure the status quo he worships. Then there are the old warhorses who can barely walk or see, but who have twisted and turned both the politician and the bureaucrat for ages and thus can continue to do so blindfolded. That type of minister fiddles with the system to make sure his/her personal stooges are appointed to serve the tenure.

There is great comfort in doing nothing, in not rocking the boat till a storm assaults it. More than any other party, the Congress appears tired and bored with possible challenges. If the UPA leadership believes that it has adjusted to the whims and fancies of its partners well, and that it has delivered justice through the implementation of policies, it has misjudged the mood both of rural and urban India. The men and women from the Rajiv Gandhi era, who are still in prime positions in the All India Congress Committee, along with those from the Indira Gandhi years, are out of sync with the reality and getting it all wrong as the politics of this country shifts with the unbelievable changes in demands and priorities. The trouble is, they think they know it all but actually they do not. They have forgotten how to listen, to use their minds creatively and to alter their fixed notions about everything, from party politics in India to the new imperatives of a globalized world. The baggage they are carrying has weighed down the party. It needs to be sent immediately to the kabadiwallah for reuse.

The Congress needs to change its guard now. General secretaries need to go to pasture and inexperienced first-timers have to be thrown into the deep end and made to deliver.