The great tragedy of Indian politics in recent years has been the state of hostile non-communication between the two national parties. This has helped other players: the communists, for instance, leveraged the Congress-BJP hostility as long as they were supporting the UPA. But policy and politics suffered because on a clutch of major national issues the Congress and the BJP can work together while not sacrificing their competitive urges and their product differentiation. So it is particularly heartening that UPA leaders have reached out to BJP leaders over the Amarnath crisis in Jammu and Kashmir. The land issue refuses to get defused and it doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that in J&K, especially, the national parties should put their political heads together. The Congress has asked for the BJP’s help in calming things down; given that the BJP-led government ensured J&K held a free and fair election that saw the Congress take a share of power, there is reason to hope the Big Two of national politics will together make a difference.
The implications of a Congress-BJP issue-specific working relationship for economic policy are of course huge. Despite BJP statements about the “legitimacy” of the trust vote and therefore the unwillingness of the party to help pass bills, the door isn’t yet shut on the issue. There are sensible leaders in both parties who would not want India to be in the absurd position of not being able to pass straightforward laws on insurance reform, pension reform and banking reform. Politics always mutates and it is possible that the dialogue on the Amarnath crisis will contribute towards better parliamentary understanding between the Congress and the BJP.
The Congress has done well to call the BJP over a political crisis. The BJP must now divorce its political arguments on the nature of the trust vote from its instinctive wish to clear some of the reform agenda. Given how fractured mandates in India are, it is vital that the Congress and the BJP sometimes together bet on India.
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