I once met an LSE alumnus who had become a millionaire by restoring the fortunes of firms gone broke. He had become a company doctor. I asked him whether his training at LSE in economics had helped him. He said the only thing which survived from his days there was that he was taught Hobbes’s Leviathan by the famous political philosopher Michael Oakshott. Once you had read Hobbes, he said, any problem was easy to solve.

I was thinking of him when the election results started to sink in. Most experts had failed to predict them. Now, they are busy downplaying their uniqueness. The Congress only got two percentage points more in vote share. The BJP plus Congress seats are back to 1998, no more. Regional satraps are still dominant. Caste parties are not dead etc. Experts are good at missing the wood for the trees—both before and after the event.

The major fact is that within ten years Sonia Gandhi has restored a sick firm back to health. From its lowest point in 1999 at 114 seats, we now have 206, highest since 1984. She is like my friend—not so much a company doctor, but a party doctor.

Old political parties are not easy to restore. India has seen the death of many political parties—the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), the Swatantra Party, the Ram Rajya Party, plus various Congress factionswhich splintered after Indira Gandhi threw them out. Now the fragments of Lohiaite Socialist Party—the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Samajwadi Party and the LSP are in their final death throes. We still have the Congress though. Now we should call it the New Congress, a party which has been rejuvenated both by success and by succession, if you know what I mean.

... contd.