The Hindu Business Line : The first 100 days

THE Manmohan Singh Government has completed its first 100 days in office, and the conventional question to ask it: how has it fared? The first issue, of course, is whether the first 100 days is enough to provide one with an idea of how stable or unstable the Government is, and whether it is an efficient regime in the sense that it will be able to govern the country in an acceptable manner during the rest of its term?

The answer to first part of the question is based on whether the dispensation is a coalition Government or a one-party affair. If the regime is a coalition, what sort of coalition is it? Is it like the United Front Governments of the 1990s, the NDA regime or the present UPA configuration?

To cut a long story short, it can perhaps be said that the Manmohan Singh coalition Government is a curious mix of stability and instability, in the sense that while there is actually one disciplined, ideology-based group on which rests the onus of allowing the Government to continue or not, that group (the Left, that is) is prone to taking extreme steps in situations where it feels that there is no alternative left but to take such steps, which could include withdrawing support to the Congress-led Government.

Indeed, during the past three months, there have been strong hiccups (principally on "reform" issues such as FDI caps, etc), the redeeming feature being that all parties concerned scrambled to control the damage before it did irreparable harm to the outfit's stability.

But this is no guarantee that the same scale of fire-fighting will be employed in dousing the flames of instability, which are almost certain to threaten the life of the Manmohan Singh Government in the months ahead. The problem is that the Left parties' strong ideological moorings will basically prevent them from treading path of compromise beyond a clearly-defined point. This means that many more hiccups are likely to disrupt UPA coalition life, and it remains to be seen how each case is tackled by the protagonists involved.

The first 100 days can, therefore, provide no clue to the stability or otherwise of the Manmohan Singh Government. As far as efficiency is concerned, three months is too short a period to be a pointer in any direction. However, the Prime Minister has himself provided firm indications that he is bent on improving the output of senior officials by, among other things, making unconventional appointments and trying to ensure the independence of PSUs in running their own affairs.

His stand on no work being done in Parliament is also noteworthy, giving the impression that the Prime Minister is not one who fits well into the conventional Indian political mould, thereby fuelling the hope that he will always be on the job of pushing efficiency during his tenure even if it means putting pressure on the political structure.

The indications on this count during the first 100 days are, therefore, positive, as are also the signals emanating from the new dispensation in which the Planning Commission finds itself in today under the stewardship of Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia. In fact, it is more than apparent that Dr Manmohan Singh is setting great store by the work the revamped Plan body is expected to do in the economic (and perhaps also the financial) sphere, an element that is almost certain to stand the nation in good stead if enough time is given for the decisions taken by the Planning Commission to work themselves out.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury