The narrative trotted out by many in the mainstream media today makes coalitions sound almost dangerous for the country. The charges are that they are inherently unstable and extractive in nature, implying that smaller players are in a position to blackmail the larger party at the centre of a coalition. Some critiques are valid but there is also an exaggerated fear of coalitions. The truth is that many of us have grown up under coalitions— the only thing is we did not perceive it that way. We thought we were under the Manmohan Singh or the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, identifying a complex regime with a single individual, when, in fact, we have mostly had coalition rule in India since 1989. A change did take place in 2014 when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a simple majority in Parliament. It is since then that the narrative by some sections . . .