Modi's Priority Should Be To Build A Coalition Of States To Get Things Done

The key to ruling India is to build a coalition of states to move things forward, each in its own domain, whether it is reform or other initiatives. Can the present government make it possible?

Two of the big myths busted in the last one-and-a-half years after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister are these: that India can be run from Delhi, and that a parliamentary majority is enough to get things done.

The idea of the all-powerful centre has been kept alive for so long largely because the Gandhi family has been in power for most of the years since 1947. It has also been kept alive by a national media based in Delhi, which the Gandhis were careful to cultivate. This is why no matter what happens in any state, the centre is the one called upon to act.

However, the reality is that political and economic muscle has shifted to the states, with only residual powers remaining with the centre.

After the 14th Finance Commission, 62 percent of the country’s tax resources go to the states. And political power has been shifting to the states for over three decades now, thanks to the rise of regional parties and/or the rise of powerful regional politicians operating within the large national parties.

If YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the most powerful Congress CM in UPA-1, Tarun Gogoi and Virbhadra Singh are the big ones right now, even if they run small states like Assam and Himachal. It is not easy anymore for even the Gandhis to dispense with the state-level leaders, as is evident from the fact that an underperforming Siddaramaiah in Karnataka has no fear of being sacked.

Narendra Modi, Shivraj Chauhan. Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh and Manohar Parrikar are the BJP’s tallest leaders – and they all rose to fame running their states.

When Modi won his 282 seats in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, we jumped to the conclusion that it was some kind of national upsurge in his favour. But that would only be half the story. The other half is that the BJP had become a major power in several states before the national elections, each under their own charismatic leaders.

The big surprises were Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where a divided opposition managed to shoot itself in the foot and gave the game away to Amit Shah. But real power rests with UP’s and Bihar’s local leadership, not Amit Shah or Modi. If the BJP wants to rule Uttar Pradesh, it will need a credible local leader. Amit Shah cannot work wonders twice, now that his opponents have woken up.

Bihar and Delhi too proved the same point. When strong local leaders rise, national parties cannot counter that without their own local leadership. Modi’s charisma can only do so much.

The Congress lost miserably because it had no strong regional leaders to stem the tide in 2014, engrossed as it was – and still is – in the antics of the heir-apparent rather than in building the party regionally. The Congress has no future precisely because it cannot develop strong regional leaders as long as the Gandhis want to perpetuate their one-family rule. For the Congress to rise again, the Gandhis must fall.

If we accept this reality of state power, ruling India will mean accepting two new ideas.

First, the centre will be run by a coalition of states. Even if the same party comes to power with a full majority, it will have to use its own state leaders to get things done. Even a widely accepted leader like Modi will have to share power with regional leaders to be successful.

Second, India will always be a multi-speed economy, with different states moving at different speeds. Moving forward nationally means getting a critical group of states to work in the same direction. For example, the success of the goods and services tax (GST), both in terms of legislation and implementation, will not be uniform nationally. Some states will do it well, others will muck it up.

The government has to get two-thirds of the states, and especially a coalition of several big states, to pull together and make it work long after the legislation is passed (right now, even that seems difficult).

The point I am getting at is this: the key to ruling India is to build a coalition of states to move things forward, each in its own domain, whether it is reform or other initiatives. This is not about regional parties banding together, but about even national parties having to rule with their regional leaders being part of the central power structure.

The only people who still haven’t got this are the Gandhis and their chamchas, but even the BJP under Modi came close to forgetting this lesson. This is why they lost Delhi and Bihar so comprehensively.

But the BJP is currently better placed that anybody else to move the country forward if it creates a coalition of states to push things. Consider the number of states the BJP controls either by itself, or in coalition, and the chances of getting some others to join the coalition.

As things stand now, the BJP runs Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand and Goa – seven states, four of them being of major or medium importance. The BJP is also the senior partner in running Maharashtra, the biggest industrial state; and junior partner in running Punjab and J&K. It is also a minor coalition partner in Andhra Pradesh. That’s 11 states so far amenable to BJP influence.

Three states – Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana – are neutrals, and unlikely to oppose the centre just for the heck of it. That’s 14 states that could potentially form the core coalition of states that can work together on an agenda. The biggies left out are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala and Karnataka, of which the Samajwadi Party-run UP state seems open to persuasion and behind-the-scenes deals.

So 15 states should not be difficult to sew up for any major initiative, with the 11 BJP-run or BJP-linked states providing the core support base. The north-eastern states are too lightweight to count, barring Assam.  The critical mass thus exists for Modi to move ahead, if he can wear his federalist hat. The implacably opposed states would be Kerala, Karnataka, Himachal, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam. That’s not a blocking majority of states.

If Modi wants to rest of his three-and-odd years to count, he has to build this coalition of states for reforming India. The country has to be reformed from below, and states are the ones who have to do the big pushing and pulling. For 65 years, we have had a constitution saying the same thing, that India is a “Union of States” and not a centralised republic. Pity the Gandhi family took the country in the wrong direction.

All states in India will not always walk together; to move, you have to build a combo of willing states. Different issues may need different combos. The coalition of states pledging to reform labour laws may be different from the one formed to pass the GST or change land laws. That is Modi’s challenge in 2016 and beyond if he wants to deliver the goods.