Is it possible for the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world to set off a tornado in another? The question is not a meaningless speculation of an over-imaginative mind. Rather, it’s the subject of a fascinating area of research in modern physics called chaos theory. Simply put, it postulates that the dynamics of certain systems are sensitive to initial developments. In such a system, even a minor and apparently arbitrary initial development can cause a chain of disparate, but mathematically deterministic, events leading to a mega-scale phenomenon called “chaos”. Like much else in modern physics and mathematics, this theory demands abstract thinking that only rare minds are capable of. In contrast, even lay minds can recognise the political chaos that is rapidly gathering inside the country’s current ruling system.Seemingly random developments are moving, almost in a deterministic manner, to produce a mega-effect — the collapse of the UPA government well before its five-year term ends in May 2009. Look at the evidence. The political footprint of UPA’s main constituent, the Congress party, has shrunk so much that it today rules in fewer states than at any time in the party’s history. And that footprint is not going to get bigger after this year’s assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Goa. UPA’s next most important constituent, the CPM, which lends outside support to the government, is currently experiencing tremors of the worst ever crisis in its history. Last week’s bloodshed in Nandigram, for which the communists alone were not responsible, will surely inject volatility into Bengal politics. Relations between the Congress and the CPM, which were never genuinely harmonious, are becoming more discordant with each passing month. So much so that, until recently when the BJP started to get its act together after its shock defeat in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the CPM looked to be the main opposition party. Even now, the Marxists show no inclination to follow canons of “coalition dharma”. Their criticism of the UPA government’s budget, for example, was mercilessly harsh. In another example, Left Front MPs brought shame upon themselves — and also upon the UPA — in an incident which Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani tellingly described as “a civil war within the UPA.” The incident underlined the absence of effective political leadership in the ruling coalition. This is perhaps the equivalent of the initial causal factor of chaos theory that has set off a series of discrediting and destabilising developments for the UPA. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, unlike most of his predecessors, is not the political leader of the government he heads. To be fair to him, he does not even pretend to perform that role. Sonia Gandhi, who is expected to discharge that duty, has so far not shown much evidence of her competence. The so-called co-ordination committee of the UPA is a charade. Apart from getting free and improper publicity for herself as chairperson of the UPA in government ads, in which she is often projected with greater prominence than the prime minister himself, we have so far not seen how she has used that office either to evolve a common harmonising vision for the ruling coalition or to sort out differences over policies and decisions of the government. Again, to be fair to Sonia Gandhi, she has not committed any costly blunders so far. Nevertheless, the experiment of creating a duality of power centres in the UPA coalition, one in which the person who wields real power is not accountable for her actions, has imparted neither cohesion nor prestige to the government. A leader must lead — with ideas, inspiration, articulation, action and interaction. A true leader does not hide behind an artificially constructed image of leadership. The strongest destabilising threat to the UPA will likely come from that hitherto bastion of stability — West Bengal. As cracks in the 30-year-old communist fortress in the state widen, engendering a distinct possibility of its collapse in the next election, the Congress high command will be tempted to see Bengal as one of the big northern states where, in alliance with Mamata Banerjee, it can wrest power from the communists and also win a big chunk of seats in the Lok Sabha. The temptation will be all the greater since the Congress is likely to fare badly all across the northern belt. But as soon as that temptation begins to acquire traction, a wrathful CPM will turn its barks at the UPA government into fatal bites. A system gets destabilised from within when its uniting principle begins to wear thin. For the UPA, the plank which brought its constituents together was the unity of self-styled secular forces. That the talk of “secular unity” is not only fake but farcical became evident when the Congress withdrew support to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in Uttar Pradesh and his party did likewise to the UPA at the Centre. What then is the commonly shared purpose of existence of the UPA government? If its leaders cannot credibly answer this question, its early fall is certain.
