The threat is not hidden or subtle, it is loud and clean.

The blackmailer emerges from a dark alley to threaten the lower-division clerk with a photograph, of nude bodies intertwined, blurred and in black and white. The editor of a suburban sleaze sheet knocks at the door of the bridegroom to talk about a report on his illicit affairs. The middle-aged man who says you have murdered your landlady frequents your evenings.

From the tight spots of life and fiction, however, the blackmailer disappears with the money, never to come back again. Or heavy with the burden of secrets, points the gun to himself and falls dead on the bridge.

But in the absurd times we live in, the blackmailer does not fade away like a bad memory. He rules us. As the stereotypical blackmailer recedes into the small town of insecurities, his counterpart springs up in the power portals of the Capital. Dressed in a surreal smile, he is the self-styled godfather of coalition politics.

Coalitions become inevitable as the electorate throws up fractured mandates and hung Parliaments. With no ideology to form the framework of a heteromorphous government, the only factor, apart from the lure of power, that binds various political parties together is their innumerable insecurities. The blackmailer thrives on insecurities.

The threat is not hidden or subtle, it is loud and clear. Sitaram Kesri who decides the fate of governments at the Centre has been telling the United Front not to dig out the cases against Congressmen, including himself. The message is, if it does, it perishes. It did, and perished. With the fate of the previous government following him like a serpentine shadow, the new Prime Minister cannot afford to ignore the blackmailer any longer. By declaring that his government is against ``witch-hunting'', I. K. Gujral was acknowledging the surrender of the coalition to the coercion of blackmail.

The increased vulnerability of the government makes it possible for even irrelevant politicians to act Big Brothers, threaten to pull down governments and get away with spin-offs. Since power is at stake, the mildest of threats will give enough mileage for the small fish in coalitions. Their mantra is, give us what we want, or else.

Almost every political party revels in blackmail to celebrate the formula of governance of our times coalition. Blackmail was perhaps what H. D. Deve Gowda did to force the Congress into silence, he made it clear that he would unearth one case after another against Congress leaders if they created trouble for him. That is precisely what Karuppaiah Moopanar did when he threatened to walk out of the United Front government if he was not made the Prime Minister. That is what Laloo Prasad Yadav does when he threatens to pull down the government, led by his own party, if the ``witch-hunting'' against him continues. What else is the Left's continued insistence on getting its ideas tattooed on the Budget?

The politics of blackmail does not confine itself to the Centre, it is equally, if not more, visible at the states as well. In Lucknow, a chief minister who, by contract, has to make way for the leader of an ideologically opposite party after six months, sets terms for the transfer of power. Mayawati's message to the BJP is not vague: ``behave yourself or you'll never get to rule''. In Maharashtra, the BJP and the Shiv Sena try to silence each other with veiled allegations of corruption.

History of coalition governments has even dirtier stories of threats, documents and photographs. Coalition shepherds had to use blackmail -- mostly threats by documents showing unaccounted wealth -- to hold their flock together to the point of majority. But those were occasional stories, often limited to gossips in the power corridors or the headlines of tabloids. But now, with the increasing acceptability -- and perhaps, inevitability -- of multi-ideological coalitions, blackmail has been institutionalised. From the beginning to the end, it remains the buzzword of existence for governments. And the longevity of such coalition governments depends upon the willingness, or the lack of it, of the leader to surrender to the blackmailing partner.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.