Even united, India has its work cut out

Congress does not have to ditch its allies anymore. Indian voters have given it 206 seats and its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) 261 in the house of 543 seats. Almost every other party, with the exception of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the communists, has queued up to be the Congress' ally.

It does not have to look for 11 members to take it to the 272 mark. Many parties have pledged unconditional support on their own, taking the tally to 330 seats.

Both Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh and Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lalu Yadav, once an integral part of the UPA, are ringing their hands unnecessarily.

They have been intentionally marginalised because Rahul Gandhi, calling the shots, wants the Congress to go it alone in the two big states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to retrieve the ground that the party occupied some three decades ago. That the Muslims, once its vote bank, are coming back to the Congress makes it even more confident.

Rahul's gamble has paid off in Uttar Pradesh. Congress won as many as 21 seats, nearly double what Mulayam Singh had offered. But the party could get only two in Bihar, where chief minister Nitish Kumar had concentrated on development and law and order, the fields which his predecessors, particularly Lalu Yadav, had neglected.

It appears that Congress has formulated a new strategy to be the all-India party on its own. After all, the party did enjoy a monopoly in the first five decades after independence. But then small entities pulled the party down. Now the voters are turning away from them after finding that the centre is becoming unstable.

The wheel is beginning to turn against some of the regional parties also. Congress has made inroads in West Bengal and Kerala, the communists' strongholds, and Rajasthan and Uttrakhand of the BJP.

Development is one issue that has weighed heavily on the minds of voters. Although they punished the BJP elsewhere, they have voted for the party wherever it has made economic progress: Narendra Modi's Gujarat, Raman Singh's Chattisgarh and Shivraj Sngh Chouhan's Madhya Pradesh. Congress has itself benefited from such schemes as the loan waiver of Rs70 billion (Dh5.8 billion) for farmers and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which guarantees 100 days of work to poor families.

Manmohan Singh's own image as someone who knows how to boost the economy at a time of financial meltdown has been a big plus for Congress. The soaring share market shows that. After the previous election, he was Sonia Gandhi's nominee. This time he stands tall on his own.

This does not mean that 10 Janpath will lessen in power or importance. However, it does mean Singh is no longer a pushover. In the previous government, even Congress ministers did not pay him much attention.

The newfound stability will help New Delhi take the long-awaited steps to deal with the situation prevailing in Pakistan. Things there had hardly settled down after the lawyers' protests when the Taliban began spreading from the haven of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to Swat and other adjoining areas.

Islamabad's predicament needs to be understood, not scoffed at. New Delhi can help by responding to the terrorism without dubbing Pakistan a terrorist state. Lahore is some 25 kilometres from Amritsar. This is no time to look back on what happened in 1947 or later. Identities cannot be restructured. Yet there can be honest and sincere efforts to respect them and take steps to avoid confrontation.

There will be problems between India and Pakistan as long as there is a lack of trust. New generations do not know each other because there is practically no contact between them. But they can be taught that they come from the same stock and share the same history.

Unfortunately, this is not happening. The two countries are drifting apart, seeking satisfaction in each other's failures or increasing problems.

The new government in New Delhi has difficulties in starting afresh because the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage have not been brought to book. But the terrorist attacks could be placed on top of the agenda.

The two countries have travelled a long way to narrow the distance between them over issues such as Kashmir.

Those who have participated in the composite dialogue say that 80 per cent of the journey has been covered. Hopefully the two sides can pick up from where they left off. In the process, the Taliban will get the message loud and clear that India and Pakistan have joined hands.

Maybe, they should start with a peace pact. This would be a fine gesture at a time when Pakistan needs to concentrate on its war against the Taliban. It should be able to withdraw all its troops without fear from the eastern border with India and relocate them to the north, where the Taliban are entrenched.

Elections are not an end - they are just the means. India has its work cut out.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian high commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.