New York City should have been the epicentre of any devastation the financial crisis caused. Yet, as Manmohan Singh's motorcade sped past the city's boroughs on the way to his hotel, he will have noticed that it does not look like a city in recession. There are a few more "To Let" signs in windows than there were five years ago, but that's it.
However, he might doubt the evidence of his eyes. In spite of the United States' recovery from recession, it seems not all is well in its manufacturing sector. Why else, the prime minister could well ask, are US manufacturers turning their awesome lobbying power to attacking Indian trade policy? After all, India is not even in the top dozen of the US' trade partners; and manufacturing in India is particularly weak. Yet the National Association of Manufacturers has led an enormously successful lobbying effort that, in effect, demonises India as so excessively protectionist a state that it is a threat to US companies. Given the state of Indian manufacturing, which has failed to grow on average for six quarters, this is plainly laughable.
But perhaps there's something more to the companies' behaviour than the search for a scapegoat in a time of trouble. As with the outcry over the government's action against notorious tax avoiders Vodafone, it is more possible than not that foreign companies are pushing hard because they recognise that the government is weak and might be forced to make concessions. That is exactly what happened with Vodafone, where the government gave in - and that is exactly what Dr Singh announced in New York about the electronics industry, too. Recent measures to prevent the Chinese from gaining complete control of India's tech backbone were to be withdrawn, he said.
The weakness of a government has many repercussions, and is self-reinforcing. And there is no question that UPA-II is weak, which has empowered obstacle makers in the private sector and among NGO lobbies, as well as in the bureaucracy.
Sadly, however, this weakness is too often seen merely as a problem with Manmohan Singh's personality. This reaction was on display again last week, when his foreign trip was thoughtlessly undermined by Rahul Gandhi, who attacked an ordinance promulgated in New Delhi before the prime minister left. Mr Gandhi's poor timing showed his lack of care for the long-term consequences of his petty outburst on peace with Pakistan and trade with the US. In doing so, he once again demonstrated that his years in politics have had too narrow a focus - on building the Congress' organisation and practically nothing else - for him to be considered anything more than a dilettante. The mark of a leader is to recognise that some issues that you may not personally care about are nevertheless important, and to factor them into your decisions. Mr Gandhi failed that test. Until and unless he passes it, a Congress that slavishly sings his praises is condemning itself to destruction.
Many, both in the Congress and in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wondered how Manmohan Singh could continue in office. That he was unlikely to resign was considered, somehow, a personal flaw. Note the odd lack of resonance between the two criticisms: Dr Singh is too weak to endure the criticism that would come from taking unpopular decisions, but Dr Singh is strong enough to ignore an attack by his party leader. Such contradictions are the consequence of a very Delhi disease: using easy psycho-babble to explain what are deeper, structural problems.
The problems here are, simply, that the Congress does not have the power in government that everyone imagined it did after the 2009 elections; and the Congress itself remains a party unable to formulate a coherent position internally on anything other than the most basic form of populism or machine politics. Since the latter is true of the BJP, too - on issues other than Hindutva - both problems seem a general characteristic of our politics.
The first problem: governments are weak when they don't have the numbers they need. This basic fact of parliamentary democracy seems to have escaped the notice of Delhi's legions of amateur psychologists. The UPA passes an ordinance - because it cannot pass laws. It has had a pathetic record of legislative achievement - because it cannot pass laws. Not because the prime minister is weak, or because of poor floor management, or a dozen other reasons insiders trot out. It fails because it does not have the numbers. All it manages to pass are those laws that nobody in the entire House understands, or those to which they do not dare to object.
Real evidence of weakness is when a leader has a clear majority, and still fails. When Barack Obama, in his first two years, had a majority in both Houses of the US legislature and still failed to pass a proper single-payer health insurance system, he showed weakness. In India, the classic example is Rajiv Gandhi, who in spite of an unprecedented majority in Parliament passed only three or four memorable laws, almost all of them terrible - the Shah Bano amendment, for example, and the anti-defection law. Both were absolute leaders with absolute majorities who nevertheless feared to take the step forward that was needed: weakness. When a prime minister is not an absolute leader, and does not have an absolute majority, making the same claim is logically invalid.
The second cause of weakness is our parties' failure to discuss policy internally. In fact, so poor is the discussion that the Congress vice-president apparently didn't know that a law on convicted members of Parliament was in the works until several days after it became an ordinance. On foreign policy, there is only one rule: don't appear like you're appeasing Pakistan. Hence the party's sinful stupidity at the time of Sharm el-Sheikh, when Dr Singh's decision to allow Pakistan a mention of Balochistan in a joint statement led to his public humiliation by party satraps who probably couldn't locate Balochistan on a map. Compare that to what happened to a man who was an absolute leader: when Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted to go to Pakistan on a whim, he went. When he wanted to build roads on another whim, the programme was started. Dr Singh is not that kind of leader not because he is weak, but because he does not have Mr Vajpayee's political strength in his party, and his coalition does not have a majority.
So why not resign, then, as all the psychologists say he should? I have no idea what his reasons are. But I will point out another inconsistency. Many said Dr Singh should finish his trip, do what he can on Pakistan and trade, and then come home and resign. Why? Because clearly there are some things that are important to do, even if he does not have the full and proper backing of his painfully clueless political party. But somehow, those important things are important enough not to resign on Monday, when he is not in India - but so supremely unimportant on Wednesday, when he is back, that he should resign. If, say, Dr Singh imagines that he still has things to be done in Delhi - like, say, push for peace with Pakistan since nobody else seems to want to do that - then apparently it is weakness to stay even when the going gets tough. Really? That's not the "get going" the proverb's about.
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