India's 13 party coalition faces an abundance of policy pitfalls

INDIA's new Prime Minister, Mr H. D. Deve Gowda, has said his United Front coalition government will carry forward the country's five year old economic reforms policy. This has been one of the major concerns since Mr Atal Biharid Vajpayee resigned last week after just 13 days in office.

The government says it will temper the economic reforms to suit the wishes of the left wing parties which form a crucial component of the 13 party alliance.

The coalition, with 194 MPs in a 545 member parliament and supported from outside government by 136 Congress-I MPs, is confident of winning approval in parliament by Friday. However, many coalition members are sceptical about the future of Mr Gowda's government which they say is controlled indirectly by the Congress party.

"The survival of this government depends on the sweet will of the Congress party," said Mr Biju Patnaik, a senior United Front leader and former chief minister of the eastern state of Orissa.

Other Front MPs too said the composition of the government had an "inbuilt" ideological contradiction which would make legislation on crucial matters difficult and they predicted its early fall.

The coalition will also face crucial security, foreign policy and nuclear issues needing immediate attention. Security analysts say the feeling of political instability the Front has already created may lead to a rise in terrorist activity and increasing pressure on India to give up its nuclear options. The Congress government twice promised to establish a National Security Council but never did.

India's relations with Pakistan, with which it has fought three wars since independence, have deteriorated rapidly over the past two years. This deterioration has cent red on the northern state of Kashmir where the six year civil war being waged by armed separatists for an Islamic homeland has killed some 15,000 people.

India accuses Pakistan, which occupied a third of Kashmir in 1947 and lays claim to the rest, of "sponsoring" the insurgents, which it denies.

This, in turn, has led to a missile race between the two nuclear capable neighbours and refusals to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT) currently under negotiation at the disarmament conference in Geneva. India has told the Conference it would be compelled to keep its nuclear options open if the CTBT does not commit itself to the elimination of nuclear weapons in a time bound framework.