Coalition governments have come to stay, and that's the message of the United Front experiment

Despite the parliamentary defeat, the United Front experiment holds the key to the future, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

So, the bubble has burst. The United Front experiment which had ballooned into a 13-party coalition with oxygen pumped in from outside by the Congress has failed. And Hardanahalli Dodde Gowda Deve Gowda has joined the ranks of V P Singh, P V Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee to become the fifth former prime minister of the nation living at a time.

A dubious distinction, you may say, but the kind of distinction that the Britishers prided themselves in the seventies when the likes of Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan were around, taking the number of one-time tenants of 10 Downing Street to the precise number of five. That was then trumpeted as a rare achievement of democracy, and there is no reason why India should feel any differently, now.

Deve Gowda's downfall was built into the system, yes. Given that his government depended on the magnanimity of the Congress underwriter, its longevity was always in doubt. From Indira Gandhi to Rajiv Gandhi, and now to Sitaram Kesri, Congressmen are poor losers, and cannot sit idle without power. If power corrupts, powerlessness corrupts Congressmen absolutely -- they would go to any extent to try and jump back into the driver's seat.

In a way, Deve Gowda was right in saying that he had to go only because Kesri wanted to come in. And the Congress president could not occupy a seat that wasn't vacant. In a way, again, it's the vanity of a man put to test against the pride and needs of a nation.

Unlike most of his predecessors, Deve Gowda did not aspire to be prime minister. Greatness was thrust upon him. Yet, he acquitted himself well under his own circumstances. And to pull him down for no explicable reason, even now smacks of indecent haste by Congressmen.

Talks are already on to try and form an alternative government, minus Deve Gowda. True, editorials have eulogised him in comparison, but the fact remains that most of his United Front compatriots are as uneasy as their Congress counterparts in facing the nation. A plea is being offered that the nation cannot afford another round of elections within a year, and that Rs 10 billion or more may have to be spend on the exercise all over again.

The fact is that our political masters are shy of facing their own masters. After having done what they did on this 'black Friday', they now seem to be converging on a unanimous opinion that they would try to save their seats -- if only they could. If it's not a Congress-led coalition government, there can be one led by the United Front itself. Worse still, there can even be one headed by the BJP, if it came to that.

What then about the lost vote-of-confidence of Friday, and what then about the vote that Vajpayee lost last May? Has the United Front become more acceptable without Deve Gowda's nominal leadership, and has the Congress become equally acceptable after all this mess that its unthinking leader has pushed the nation into? Incidentally, has the BJP too become less communal and more secular in the last year or so?

An election could still be the best way out. For a country still in its democratic infancy and going through the toddler's stage, it's better to fall once or twice, and fail ourselves in the short-term before learning to stand straight on both our feet, then walk with our heads high.

Maybe, the Congress does not deserve it, but the party with its still substantial grassroots level support needs to be told loudly and clearly, Thus far, and no more.

The adventurism of the Kesri type needs to be nipped in the bud. A numbers game alone should not be the deciding factor in a democracy, though that's what it all boils down to.

The Deve Gowda government was based on the unhealthy anti-BJPism of some political parties. Unhealthy, because a party like the BSP, for instance, has found nothing illogical, or politically immoral to do business with the BJP time and again in Uttar Pradesh, after having shunned the other, time and again.

So has been the case with the Akali Dal and the Haryana Vikas Party of Bansi Lal, not to mention George Fernandes and his Samata Party. The last two parties may have had pro-BJP links from the very day of formation, but can anyone forget what stuff Bansi Lal and George Fernandes used to be made of when it came to taking on the Hindutva forces, before their own marginalisation in their parent organisations?

Granted that no government was possible without a coalition of sorts, so the anti-BJPism of some of these parties did make some political sense. To their credit should also go the honour of keeping the United Front united, thus far. The constituents of the United Front, for that matter, would rather stay united and fall united, than split away and spirit away at the sight of the danger-light ahead.

They may have their own political compulsions for staying united, but this is the first time that no horse-trading of any kind was mentioned. Which was not the case even when the Advani-Vajpayee leadership took a 'principled stand' of not encouraging horse-trading of the Congress variety when the 13-day-old BJP government was facing a confidence vote in the Lok Sabha last year.

That way, even the last-minute rumours of possible splits in the Congress on the eve of Deve Gowda's confidence vote had their origins elsewhere. No one said that either the United Front partners, or some business house or the other, on its behalf, tried buying up Congress MPs in large numbers, to prop up the incumbent regime that has been industry's delight.

Big business in this country may shed a tear or two for the fall of Deve Gowda's governemnt, -- particularly if Chidambaram's Budget gets stymied -- but no one said they were behind any UF attempts to buy peace with the Congress.

Instead, it was the frustrated dissent and impotent rage of individual Congress MPs against their own leader for having pushed them into another round of elections, without notice. There were also reports about the ambitions of Congress leaders like Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot playing their part in the process. If all the party MPs stuck together and voted out Deve Gowda, it had more to do with their own anticipation of imminent elections at the end of it all, when they would require a party ticket and party resources.

For a party that claims rightful credit for uniting India that never was united in the first place, the 'hands' of the Congress are now bloodied with the successive cuts it has inflicted on the national polity from the days of Indira Gandhi. No, the reference is not just to the fun and frolic she had at the expense of Charan Singh in August 1979, but dates back to her impatience of the late fifties, when she had the democratically-elected Communist government of E M S Namboodiripad dismissed undemocratically.

The party had better remember that it does not hold any monopoly to rule the country anymore, and that it is also not the monolith organisation it was once thought to be.

Coalition governments have come to stay, and that's the message of the United Front experiment. It is the regional parties, and their sub-regional cousins who will count the most, and even a party like the BJP has understood that, as is seen from its unbridled anxiety to have allies and associates in various states.

To panic at the push of a button in the Lok Sabha will only encourage power-hungry traders like Sitaram Kesri to push their way ahead. It may be a short reprieve from a temporary problem, but will be a permanent infliction on the democratic polity in the long-term.