Mr Narasimha Rao may not be the first Congress prime minister of India to be forced to resign by the defeat of his party in a general election, but he has done so in circumstances which have a distinctly, terminal impression about them. Congress, which has dominated Indian politics since independence, has always been subjected to schisms and fragmentation, and as the party of government for most of the last 50 years, it has been dogged by scandal and corruption. But it has survived because of the broad base of its support which overrides India's rich social and cultural diversity and has made it the major force for political unity.
This is no longer the case. Mr Rao has not only been the party's first leader who has not been a member of the Nehru Gandhi clan (apart from Mr Lal Bahadur Shastri for a brief period in the 1960s before Mrs Indira Gandhi took control), but his lacklustre personality and shortage of organisational ability has seen a steady erosion at state and national level in the last five years. Major figures in the party deserted him after he succeeded Mr Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and a number of financial scandals further undermined his authority, together, ironically, with his stringent efforts to reform the economy. His own personal ability to survive, which astonished observers, has not strengthened Congress since he took over.
But the main reason why it is likely that the party's decline will be irreversible has been the rise of Hindu nationalism. Twelve years ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has now the largest number of members in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament), had only two. The secularism on which the Congress has based its appeal, enabling it to steer a middle way through the volatile waters of Indian politics, has been challenged ruthlessly and appears to have lost. Mr Rau acted firmly to suppress the riots fomented by Hindu militants at Ayodhya, where they attacked a mosque at the end of 1992, and the Hindus Muslim violence that followed in Bombay and Ahmedabad at the beginning of 1993. But in spite of a temporary setback for the BJP in state elections, it has since been in the ascendant.
A long process of bargaining is likely before the shape of a new coalition emerges. The BJP, in spite of being expected to have the largest number of members, has failed to get enough seats to form a government with its political allies, and the National Front Left Front (NF-LF) an alliance of centre and leftist parties has condemned its sectarianism and is hardly likely to compromise itself by joining it in government as the minority partner. The choice for Congress would then be whether to support a minority NF-LF administration or, after replacing Mr Rau as leader, offering to participate in a coalition with the centre and left. The party's most pressing problem, however, is to rebuild itself as a credible political force in time for the next general election.