Reshuffle,collapse

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reshuffled his council of ministers,in a move long anticipated. Yet the disappointment engendered by the exercise turns out to be as great as were the expectations from it. And the main reason is the Congress party has again shown its inability to prioritise issues of governance and of accountability. UPA 2 has faltered,and it has faltered on issues of governance. It has been cursory with its reform efforts,going for incremental changes,and postponing any heavy-duty legislation that prunes the thicket of laws constraining India. Its ministries have been lacklustre,unable to rework their functioning for a larger,more complex economy. Many hoped that reshuffling would impart some momentum to a drifting administration. But what we have eventually been given is a massive let-down. The UPA is still undermining itself through its own complacency — or lethargy.

What was needed was a clear signal of accountability. Under-performers should have been dropped; those who had demonstrated capability,promoted. Instead,we get coy sideways moves. There is no reason to suppose that Veerappa Moily,for example,who has not been a success as law minister,would be able to steward the ministry for corporate affairs through these tough times. There are few new faces,young or otherwise. The whole exercise — typified by Vilasrao Deshmukh’s puzzling move to science and technology — seems to be an exercise in balancing the Congress’s politics. No defining big idea seems visible; instead,it is impossible to read this as being about governance. This is a pity; because it is on governance that UPA 2 will be judged by the electorate. The lack of big ideas extends beyond the lack of even an acknowledgement of the principle of accountability. The Congress seems to have forgotten that elections,even national elections,are won and lost in the states,and parties build strength through the power of their state-level stalwarts; it has shown no inclination to free its magnates up to go back to the states and help out their embattled partymen. That is a bad sign for 2014.

The Congress leadership seems to be convinced that big ideas — governance,accountability,reform — are risky. So the UPA will take no risks. It will try to rule risk-free for this term,expecting that that will be sufficient to return it three years on. There will be musical chairs once in a while. This is an old,outdated politics,and it comes with huge costs in terms of missed opportunities.