Had he been around Rajiv Gandhi could very well have countered that by asking, "Has Italian politics ever heard of Udham Singh Nagar, or dealt with a problem like that?"

Udham Singh Nagar is a small district in the Terai foothills in Uttar Pradesh known for its flourishing farms, owned primarily by hardy Jat Sikhs who migrated from Punjab decades ago to turn some of the cruellest marshes into a grain bowl. Now it is to become a part of Uttaranchal and the Akalis are most upset. Uttar Pradesh does not even share a border with Punjab. This area was never a Punjabi enclave in any way until three decades ago. So why are the Akalis getting so emotional? What is their locus standi?

The answer came from Surjit Singh Barnala in a recent television interview where,indirectly defending Jayalalitha's tantrums, he asked what was wrong with a partner putting pressure on the coalition to get its demands accepted? What this means is that instead of putting their heads together, setting aside their parochial concerns and building a national agenda, the coalition partners should presume that there is open season on governance. The result is the grab-as-grab-can situation blighting this coalition in much the same manner as the previous two.

Since most of us in Delhi don't know what the Udham Singh Nagar problem is all about -- neither do we care since it is so far away -- it is worth speculating on some possibilities closer home. If the Akalis can argue -- and be heard seriously -- that they have the final say in deciding the fate of a distant district in Uttar Pradesh because a large number of Sikhs live there, what is to stop Mamata Bannerji from demanding that when Delhi is given full statehood its gentrified Bengali ghetto of Chittaranjan Park should be declared anautonomous district even if it wasn't possible to declare it an enclave of West Bengal? And if she actually raises that demand tomorrow, don't say I gave her the idea. Parkash Singh Badal has already sought her support on the Udham Singh Nagar issue because a large number of Bengalis also live there. Vajpayee must count himself lucky that Badal hasn't also discovered a Tamil enclave in the foothills or he'd be running short of envoys to send to Jayalalitha. She could, in any case, demand special status for Delhi's Western Extension Area where a large number of Tamils live. Similarly, Farooq Abdullah could lay claim to the Kashmiri colony of Pamposh Enclave. The possibilities are endless.

Those who lectured us on the beauty of the rainbow coalitions, on how governments such as Gowda's and Gujral's actually complemented India's unity in diversity, were missing the point. This once-romantic idea triggered a process of Balkanisation of the Indian political mind. In other nations where the government and thesystems function reasonably smoothly in spite of coalition politics, such as Israel and Italy (now the mother's country instead of the mother-in-law's), partners have shown sufficient maturity to be able to work on a common agenda, subsuming their own parochial concerns. In India, tragically, coalition politics now means that the idea of the nation is subordinated to the sectarian interests of the regional, or rather the sub-provincial, leader. The Akalis and Jayalalitha are not the only ones to blame. Remember how Mulayam and Laloo worked to undermine the previous coalitions? How Mulayam as defence minister spent almost two years protecting his own political frontiers in Etawah even if it meant the IAF spending crores to take him thereabouts every week or so? And how the CPI(M) and the Congress used their "outside" leverage not to strengthen their secular coalition but to milk it for whatever it was worth and dump it when it was convenient?

Once the leader dreamed and fought for the nation. Today hestruggles for the mofussil. The coalition then begins to resemble a chamber of princes without the East India Company or the Crown to keep them under check. Nehru's grand idea of unity in diversity is thereby reduced to unity by distributing the diversity among partners in power. A good example of how this reduces governance to an arrangement of mutually shared conveniences is the way this Budget has been revised, rewritten and raped after its presentation.

The problem is not so much with a Balkanised polity or with regional politics. The problem is the absence of a national mindset. There is nothing wrong with the sub-provincial politician coming to power in Delhi if he has the intellect, and the system the strength, to then persuade him to leave his municipal concerns behind. Instead, today, these define our new federalism. That is no way India can afford to be governed for much longer. This is the age of great ideas and great change. The society, the economics, the theories and practice of governance,the international linkages and power equations are all changing far too rapidly for us to continue living with this farce. But where is the solution? A good coalition leader today is one who bows to everybody, even a Ramakant Khalap (remember our former law minister?), the one-man party. Where is the point then in wasting a Vajpayee on the job? A Gowda would do quite well, even better as he at least does not have a national image to worry about.

There are no easy answers and none will be found unless the two dominant national parties and the biggest victims of this Balkanisation of our politics introspect and find radical solutions. Sonia may today be in a pretty good position to pull down this government but what will she create instead except a Rainbow Coalition Mark-III, again subject to similar parochial blackmail? Yet another election will produce one more fractured Parliament like this one and the same problems will continue. Similarly, what is the BJP's future? Would the two then consider taking abreak from this municipalised politics and sharing power, either in a coalition or an arrangement by turn, and resume the larger ideological battle when the next election is due in the normal course? Overly simplistic, you might say, but did you ever expect George Fernandes in a BJP coalition or Laloo and the Congress becoming such close friends? Indian politics needs desperately to reverse the mofussilisation of its mind. Even more desperately, India needs a notion of stability in such eventful times.