Coalition era | Fragments of a vision

Taking 1995-2005 at face value, it may appear as if a capricious higher power was in charge—dealing out a dizzying series of ultra-fast sleights of hand. Narasimha Rao was still there as things began, but facing the exit door and, after him, came six more prime ministerial swearing-ins, featuring four faces: H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, A.B. Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. The Rao regime wasn’t exactly the paragon of rock-solid stability, being a minority government taunted by no-trust motions, but it was canny enough to survive for five years. Net net, that meant India was still used to a certain inertia of rest in New Delhi. But this decade is when the law of averages caught up.

Vajpayee had the first stab at it. Ayodhya had given the BJP quite a boost, and it made its first heavy lift at the Centre. It was the single largest party, but a fragmented mandate meant it didn’t have the numbers to make it stick. Vajpayee’s first term lasted only 13 days. Who would fill the void amid this swirling, majority-less churn? There was an embarrassment of riches when it came to potential prime ministers. After V.P. Singh demurred, the Left too held back on Jyoti Basu. As often in such situations, making a choice meant making a compromise.

Here, it took the unlikely shape of Gowda, a raagi-flavoured farmer leader from Karnataka. As the second PM from the South, northerners found him even more inarticulate than Rao, and an unfair share of derision came his way. But his reign, while brief, was creative enough. With its solid socialist-secular street cred, it cut a deeper swathe on reforms, with P. Chidambaram’s ‘dream budget’ making bold tax reforms, and bringing in an ingenious voluntary scheme to reabsorb black money. Striking advances were also made on other fronts. The old Nagaland problem, for instance, saw a dialogue initiative that ended a long deadlock—the ongoing talks are essentially a continuation of that. Even the Delhi Metro was kickstarted then.

But the Congress had gone from pious protagonist to scheming puppeteer. Out went Gowda and in came Gujral, a safari-suited Punjabi, old Indira durbari and peacenik. His tenure, again cut short, came to be known for an eponymous foreign policy. The Gujral Doctrine now represents the pacifist end of Indian thinking, and entails shedding the hegemon-like approach to South Asia. The hawks saw it as terrible folly, a fundamental softness of character; the doves seek proof that the opposite has done any good. In the event, it had no chance to be tested under Gujral. An INDIA TODAY exclusive ousted him.

Vajpayee was back, for 13 months at first, then for five years—gaining longevity by borrowing the grammar of coalitions invented by the United Front. Foreign policy was again his signature domain, but it had a wider, nimbler vocal range: from Pokhran-II to peacemaking. A soft form of Hindutva permeated policy for the first time, education being a major focus. Reforms stabilised and sped up, especially on telecom and disinvestment. Signs of progress covered India’s visage in the form of gleaming highways. For a time, it felt like the sun would never set on India Shining. Till the cardsharp up there dealt his last hand. This time, the architect of reforms, Manmohan Singh, was to get his turn under the sun.