Murder of Democracy

Kuldip Nayar

T he British Parliamentary system that we follow describes the Opposition as Her Majesty’s Opposition. It is considered part of the overall ruling apparatus, notwithstanding the party in power. There is never any boycott because it is unthinkable that a part can be separate from the whole. What we have seen in our Parliament is a farce, the BJP’s version of Parliamentary democracy which the party has introduced to the world for the first time.

The party has no defence. Still Sushma Swaraj, its spokesperson, had the audacity to say that the attendance by the BJP-led NDA of the budget session for one day was to show ‘respect’ to the system. The Rajya Sabha, she said, would continue to be boycotted. It did not mean anything because the money bill required no endorsement of the Upper House.

I believe George Fernandes, who learnt such tactics along with late Raj Narain, was the initiator of the boycott idea. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha were against extending the boycott beyond three days. But then socialists Fernandes, Sushma and, of course, the hardliner Advani, had their way.

People on the Left have no sense of proportion when they join the Right and become its exponent. Fernandes is another person who, like Sushma, has changed colours after being a socialist for almost all his life. Maybe, both are ideologically convinced that Hindutva is necessary to found a socialist society.

But they forget that the first and foremost duty is to sustain the Parliamentary system, in the absence of which the boycott has little meaning. The BJP is chipping away at the very structure. Party chief LK Advani, once India’s Home Minister, did not help when he said that they were not stalling Parliament as if they were rendering a great service to the system. But why should the BJP pick on Parliament? Does the party have no other forum to voice its protest? If it is the question of publicity — that seems to be the primary purpose — they could have had the dharna outside the Parliament house. The boycott has pernicious connotation and it is a bad precedent to set.

I am relieved to see that the Telugu Desam is slowly distancing itself from the NDA. The party should have never associated with the BJP in the first instance. Were the Telugu Desam to analyse the reason for its defeat in the Assembly elections it would find that the taint of communalism alienated the support of liberals and minorities in Andhra Pradesh.

The fact is that the BJP has not reconciled itself to the loss of power after its defeat at the Lok Sabha polls. After having been in power for six years, the party has forgotten how to behave as the Opposition. That it misgoverned the country during its tenure is another matter for debate.

Why does the budget, the most important annual business of the country, become the target of non-cooperation by the NDA is not understandable? The alliance did the same thing last year to let the Finance Bill go through without any scrutiny or debate. It also indicates the abdication of its duty. This is no way to protest. It is playing fraud on the Indian people who, I am sure, will give a fitting reply at the time of the general election.

The Congress cannot occupy a high moral ground because it too stalled Parliament when the NDA was in power. Not once, not twice but almost the entire session. It is a pity that Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee should justify that the Congress only impeded Parliament, not boycotted like the BJP. It is only a question of degree. Both have harmed the system. Let the Congress and its allies now at least say that they would never disturb Parliament, whatever the provocation. The NDA should follow suit and show the same resolve. At one time, the two main political parties in Bangladesh — the BNP and the Awami League —made such a declaration. They fell out on some other issue but their resolve on Parliament stood.

What is the issue that created the crisis? The court framed charges against Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav who has umpteen cases of corruption pending against him. He and some ministers have faced the NDA’s wrath earlier when it raised the question of tainted ministers. In a way, it is the repeat of what happened three or four years ago.

The Congress was the heckler when Advani was indicted in the Babri masjid demolition case with charges framed against him. In all honesty, Advani should have resigned then. If NDA had set such an example, Lalu Yadav could not have stayed in the government. Coming back to charges against Advani, the NDA government put pressure on the CBI which was pursuing the case. The carrot of the National Human Rights Commission membership was dangled before the then CBI director to withdraw the affidavit which formed the basis for charges. He did so and got the post after his retirement as reward.

In the beginning of its tenure, the UPA seemed following some value system. Jharkhand’s Shibu Soren was dropped from the Cabinet when the court at Ranchi framed charges against him. The Congress wanted to show that it had turned a new leaf. But when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the other day that there was no question of dropping Lalu Yadav even after the charges were framed, it was evident that the Congress could not afford to drop him because his party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, had some 13 seats in the Lok Sabha. The Congress needed every vote in the 546-member house to keep the UPA government afloat.

I come back to the question I raised in the beginning. What point the boycott of Parliament has made? In fact, the nation faces a new challenge — the challenge of the Opposition party not attending Parliament in a democratic set-up. One Congress leader told me the other day after the NDA boycott that Parliament was functioning smoothly. Is it the order of things to come? The government and the Opposition are batting on their own, one saying things in Parliament and the other countering them outside. True, the NDA has caused embarrassment to the UPA. But what does it all come to?

Boycotting Parliament, the highest elected body in the country, is too serious a matter to be trifled with for our political purposes. The two Houses represent democracy, our pride. This is a confluence of our multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society. A consensus reached in Parliament is accepted by the nation. What otherwise has been going on in the country is nothing but the highhandedness of the Congress and the BJP, reflecting misgovernance or non-governance.