In no democracy is the high calling of government immune from contamination by the rough trade of politics, but in India the contrast is unusually stark. Government's prim face this week was that of Yashwant Sinha, the finance minister, who on February 28th presented to Parliament a budget that struggles to speed up a faltering economy without expanding a deficit that is already ruinous. Meanwhile, freshly elected politicians in India's biggest state pondered whether to defect from their own parties to break an electoral stalemate, tempted, it is said, by cash offers starting at 10m rupees (about $200,000). There is a connection. The elections in Uttar Pradesh and three other states in February were a disaster for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party that leads the national coalition government in Delhi and to which Mr Sinha belongs. On top of that comes another crisis: on February 27th a mob attacked a train carrying Hindu activists home from Ayodhya, where they had taken part in a controversial campaign to build a temple on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindus ten years ago. At least 50 died. The prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, cancelled a trip to Australia and told the temple builders to desist. The Hindu groups, which have close links to the Hindu-nationalist BJP, have refused. A confrontation might distract attention from the BJP'S electoral humiliation. But it might also sap the political energy re- quired for reforms. Without them, the economy will continue to slow down.
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