This brings me to my main point: that this kind of indecision and dithering, double-speak and double-dealing is built into the situation, and these grievous flaws would persist and perhaps grow worse. In all fairness, there was a lot of indecision in Indian governance even during the era of single-party dominance. Indeed, the last Congress prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, had propounded the doctrine that to not take a decision was a decision in itself. But it would be futile to deny that all the past ills have escalated since the dawn of the coalition age, at one time much welcomed.

Sadly, “compulsions of coalition”, routinely invoked since V.P. Singh’s short tenure of 11 months as prime minister, have become a convenient excuse for procrastination, prevarication, passing the buck and even perverse enactment of instant laws such as the one that Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss needed for his vendetta against the eminent cardiac surgeon, P. Venugopal. (Subsequently declared invalid by the Supreme Court.)

The kind of troubles the coalition headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to have has become much worse in the case of the UPA for a reason unique to it. In 2004, when Sonia Gandhi forsook the office of prime minister and chose Manmohan Singh for the post, her decision was widely applauded. It was then generally assumed that she would concentrate on the acutely pressing task of rebuilding the Congress and leave the prime minister free to run the government. Unfortunately, this has not happened.

... contd.