Indian Government Will Not Fall

In September 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government was under serious political pressure — and it held.

The trigger was the decision to allow foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, a reform that infuriated allies. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, a key UPA partner, withdrew its support in protest, and for several days it looked as though the government might lose its parliamentary majority.

It didn't. The Trinamool's 19 Lok Sabha MPs took the UPA's effective strength from 273 to 254 — just below the halfway mark of 272 — but the Congress insisted its numbers were safe, and outside support from the Samajwadi Party (22 MPs) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (21 MPs), neither keen on fresh elections, kept the government standing. Manmohan Singh, famously taciturn, had staked his second term on reforms his critics called a sellout and his supporters called long overdue.

The episode captured the paradox of coalition India: a government that looked perpetually on the verge of collapse, and never quite fell.