Whenever the king is weak, the satraps rebel. This was the history of India for many millennia from the Mauryas to the Mughals. And this seems to be the experience of the United Progressive Alliance government as well. The main takeaway from Monday's meeting of chief ministers is that some of them got together, at the sidelines of the meeting on the country's internal security agenda, to plot the UPA's ruin, rather than deal with the subject on hand.