Natural death comes as an unspectacular, unrevolting, inevitable end. It lacks the additional sensational dimension of untimely, forced or assisted demise. That is why it does not provoke quite the same reactions among those who survive the deceased. That is why it is easier to live with. In democratic politics, as in life, there is a natural order of a ruler’s ascent and gradual stabilisation followed by descent leading to the eventual fading away. This order is occasionally ruptured by the force of circumstances which impose their own trajectory for a while before normalcy is restored. Often this departure from the natural order is welcome and at times it is even necessary. What we have been witnessing in India for the past several months, though, does not seem to exactly fit into any of these familiar patterns.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh is being systematically thwarted and demeaned by elements within his party and even his government. The prime minister doesn’t seem to be serving his own cause competently either, turning it into a one-sided game of seeming terminal illness. There is nothing natural, inevitable or desirable about the manner in which the ground seems to be slipping under his feet. That makes it all very intriguing indeed. And more than a little worrying. None of it augurs well for governance at an important juncture when a combination of politico-economic forces has catapulted India into an enviable position in the comity of nations. As a fast-growing emerging economy India may well be poised to make a historic leap but that can scarcely happen when the central government is in the grip of the sort of wrangling that we are witnessing on a daily basis.

Consider just some of the symptoms of the malaise that afflicts the Manmohan Singh-led government. When Singh announces that he is prepared to face the Public Accounts Committee on the issue of the 2G spectrum allocation, out comes a Pranab Mukherjee to declare that he wouldn’t have suggested such a recourse to the prime minister. When Singh seeks to suggest that the 2G spectrum allocation had the sanction of his entire government at the time, out comes a carefully-time newspaper report that the then finance minister had actually offered a somewhat different opinion. When Singh seeks to defend his government’s push for growth at the cost of inflation, out comes a Jairam Ramesh to deride those who hanker after 9 percent growth as growth maniacs. Add the well-publicised ongoing tussle between the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council and the government on a series of issues fundamental to the approach of the prime minister and you can envision a very sorry state of affairs indeed.

Of course, the prime minister appears disingenuous in suggesting that the compulsions of coalition politics have resulted in a series of scams. After all, despite his lack of political authority, the buck stops right at his table in several cases. There can be a serious debate over his push for economic growth at the cost of unbearable inflation as well. And he can always choose to walk away rather than suffer the slings and arrows of his colleagues.  

Nothing, however, absolves the Congress party and the family that appointed the prime minister. Having systematically eroded the prime minister’s authority the party would do well to replace Manmohan Singh. Else, it can only be following a policy of diminishing returns. The onus is on Sonia Gandhi to follow through the campaign against her lieutenant.