DISRUPTING PARLIAMEMT

For all these days I’ve been wrestling with my thoughts so as to fathom the psyche of the politicians and the political parties in Opposition who oppose for the sake of opposing any proposal or legislation tabled in the parliament by the ruling govt and thereby they not only try to hold the constitution to ransom but also show their total lack of concern for the hopes and aspirations of people in parliamentary democracy at large.  Yes the logjam – this is what I mean and I touched my concern many a times in my earlier posts but now I would analyze the malady in greater details so as to invite your reactions. One thing we must all know is that constitution of India is very sacrosanct. It is not given by the individual but on the contrary it is given by WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA. And if the parliament stands there it is because of WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA. But unfortunately WE has become I and got limited to individuals and I think individuals do not matter. It is more than this - the parties, the ideology and the vision that come first. Never in history there has been a logjam in UK or in US. There was a logjam once for a few minutes when Tony Blair was the PM Peter Mandelson favoured Hidujas and violation of passport law and he quit. But I am not interested in the individual as I would dwell deep into as to where we are going wrong. I grew up in a democracy wherein I always contented myself with an easy answer that as you sow so shall you reap. “You did it so I’ll do it!!!” That is no logic. Even so much of money is being wasted. But today I intend to go even beyond. I think more than the money is the value -- the people of India is to be valued. Thereby the logjam is more myopic with the major issues being missed. Parliament is a forum for discussion, for passage of laws, for raising issues that concerns different parts of the country and it is a place for cut and thrust of debate no matter how strongly one feels that has to be articulated through words, Din and noise should not become the language of parliament. Din and noise can be the language of political rallies during election time outside parliament. But somewhere parliament has become a hostage to politics of confrontation. The Congress opines what BJP did to them during UPA -2 govt now they are administering to BJP the medicine they gave to Congress and expect that the BJP shouldn’t talk about the disruption now. The BJP is today questioning as to who are they to tell them about propriety. Hence spate of allegations and counter allegations went on and on and still going on. Whether or not for that matter BJP may deserve what Congress is giving or Congress may deserve it what BJP is giving to Congress is the question but the country doesn’t deserve this nor does the parliament at all. The ruling party knew that they will have to face this situation ever since alleged involvement of their top leaders in Lalitgate, Vyapam to alleged involvement of the govt to allow the bank scamsters and defaulters to leave the country and the opposition will seize opportunity to pin the govt but the ruling party have had no strategy to counter these. As a result a level of bitterness and lack of confidence have crept in and more so after the National Herald issue which angered the Congress party. Congress with mere 44 odd PMs in Lok Sabha couldn’t have any better opportunity than to continue with the logjam of the parliament. Rahul Gandhi went to the extent of saying it as political vendetta against him. It was still very unfortunate that even some of the senior leaders of the Congress had gone to the extent of saying that some of the observations made by the High Court were not in consonant with the laws of the land. On the other hand disruption of parliament is having its own impact on people at large. The BJP lead NDA wants to get very critical triple talaq bill passed in this session of Rajya Sabha so that they are able to go ahead with its implementation to the best satisfaction of Muslim women exposed to exploitation at the hands of men of their own community. Now this disruptive situation assumes greater concern as BJP also disrupted parliament in 2013 both in monsoon as well as winter sessions and also to some extent in the budget session before 2014 general election in April and May. The problem with our democracy is the adversary environment and not a consensual one. As I have pointed out above that this is not the first time that the parliament has been disrupted but many examples can be given from the past that such acts have taken place and many of the legislations were stalled. For instance GST legislation itself had a long past before the legislation has been enacted. In this context I would like to point out that successful democracy must have a consensual base and there should be an understanding that opposition is also a part of the government and that is how in Britain it is called Her Majesty’s Opposition. So until and unless we develop a political culture in which there is oneness of policy I think such disruption will continue as such disruptions are expression of total lack of concern, seriousness and responsibility for taking the legislation linked with people’s welfare.

Now in the past if there has been a full scale discussion by the members from all political parties on constitution and Dr Ambedkar’s role on making of the constitution then there was an issue of VK Singh’s remarks agitated the parliament and the opposition demanded for an action against him as even during the debate on the constitution it was stated that VK Singh’s remarks flew in the face of the letter and spirit of the constitution and that merely his explanation won’t do. Then there was a debate on alleged incidents of intolerance. I may also point out that the bilateral pact between India and Bangladesh on the exchange of enclaves also stalled in the previous Lok Sabha. And there was no adequate legitimate reason for stalling that. Privately at that time it was being stated that why should we (BJP led NDA) let Congress lead UPA 2 take credit of it as we will have it passed when the new House is constituted. And that’s how it has happened. There was consensus behind this in this House on the exchange of conclaves though there was an attempt to split the implementation of the pact into two stages – 1) West Bengal and other parts 2) Assam because there was some problem with the state unit in accepting the pact for exchange of enclaves. What I want to convey is that parliament has been victim of partisan political play. Partisan play can be understood but partisan play without reason cannot be understood and must be condoned. Both - Congress and BJP are guilty of it. So politics is about opportunity. One may oppose a legislation at a given point of time but once one gets to know full facts and when one is in power one does change one’s position. Similarly govts do change their positions. This current govt changed her positions on many issues including on engaging with Pakistan and there is nothing unusual as the ruling government is in the habit of changing the horse midway.

I hope the ruling party must have well understood the whole issue and should not have any objection either. The basic objective of any govt or any opposition party cannot be removed from the destination of serving the people as Modi says about himself pradhan sevak in same way as Nehru used to say the same about himself in English version. The beauty of Indian Democracy is that the native wisdom of the people of this country can overturn the most charismatic and most powerful leaders if they don’t measure upto their expectations.

Allow me to have a bit of optimism amid the maze of political opportunism and subsequent din due to turmoil in parliament that I can see the silver lining in the case of jerky as well as non-deliverance. There was also silver lining when BJP disrupted the House in 2013-14 as at the end of the day Congress supported the government to pass GST bill. BJP did support the creation of the state of Telangana by bifurcating the state of Andhra Pradesh. Like it or not BJP is threatened that the current disruption may impact the people and ‘make in India’ agenda for ease of doing business in worst possible way if bad loans, NPAs and scamsters have their day economy may get stuck and is not able to go through.