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Sunday, Aug 01, 2004

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Degeneration of politics

By Inder Malhotra

Seven years ago when this country celebrated the golden jubilee of its Independence the world applauded it for being the only one in the Third World to have made a success of parliamentary democracy. In an article in The New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal, a famous former editor of the newspaper, took successive United States administrations to task for having backed ``tin-pot military dictators'' in India's neighbourhood and ``forsaken'' the world's largest democracy.

But barely had the festivities ended when in Lucknow, the capital of the key State of Uttar Pradesh, there took place an outrage on democracy so sordid and shameful that even the most ardent well-wishers of India blanched. For, sickening TV images of the honourable members of the Assembly hurling microphones and other deadly missiles at one another had gone around the globe. Mr. Rosenthal had occasion to remark: ``At this rate, Indian democracy might not last very long.''

Mindless confrontation

Mercifully, the gloomy forecast has not come true but this is not for want of trying by almost the country's entire political class. The degeneration of Indian politics, indeed of the entire democratic system, that started during the late sixties has continued relentlessly. The way this apparently unstoppable downhill slide has intensified in recent weeks drives one to despair. The mindless confrontation between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government that has descended to a boycott by the principal Opposition of all parliamentary committees at a time when they should be discussing the budget is by itself alarming enough. This has been compounded by the dismal drama focussing on the former Union Coal Minister, Shibu Soren, and the way the unfortunate kidnapping of three Indian truck drivers in Iraq has become a football of partisan politics. Public life is descending to utter perversity.

Rival calculations

Rival calculations and aspirations leading to this sorry state of affairs are partly curious and partly bizarre. The UPA Government has shown no sign yet of settling down, leave alone buckling down to the imperative task of governance. At the same time, the BJP, still unwilling to accept that it has been voted out, appears to have convinced itself that all it has to do is to take to the barricades against the Government and the latter would collapse like nine pins sooner rather than later. The way would be then clear for the saffron party's return to office and power. Interestingly, this hope — nay, conviction — is rooted in several factors ranging from astrological predictions to strong differences between the UPA Government and the Left Front that supports it from outside. Moreover, some spin-doctors of the BJP have gleefully ``discovered'' that ``no non-Brahmin Prime Minister has ever completed a full term and Manmohan Singh is not a Brahmin!''

`Bogus war cries'

Hence the BJP's bogus war cries over the removal of four Governors whose main qualification was staunch loyalty to the RSS. On the issue of ``tainted'' Ministers, also used by the BJP to disrupt Parliament day after day, the BJP leaders were downright disingenuous. Their claim that the charges against the ``tainted'' Ministers in the Vajpayee Cabinet were ``political'' while those against Lalu Prasad and others were ``criminal'' was absurd.

Pray, what is so political about a conspiracy that led to the worst imaginable act of vandalism and subsequent communal carnage in which hundreds were killed?

Government's delay

However, if the BJP's indignation over the removal of Governors and non-removal of ``tainted'' Ministers was spurious, over the Shibu Soren affair, the UPA Government gifted it a big stick to beat the ruling combination with. A member of the Union Cabinet defying the law should have been sacked on day one. Regrettably, the impeccably upright Dr. Manmohan Singh took a whole week to do so. By then enormous damage had been done. But then the Prime Minister's difficulty is that he is working in what is politely called a ``political vacuum'' which brings one back to the reason why his Government has not yet found its feet.

The BJP had no problem with Mr. Soren for full five years during which he was its ally. After he changed sides, the BJP Ministry in Jharkhand lost no time resurrecting a 29-year-old case against him.

Unlucky captives

About the most unfortunate case of three Indian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq — where other captives, including two Pakistanis, have already been killed — the less said the better. New Delhi is in no position to meet the kidnappers' demands. For months it has been warning all citizens not to go to Iraq. And it has been doing, as it must, all it can to save the three imperilled lives. Even so, crass political instigation, combined with the lapses of the electronic media, has created an atmosphere of insurrection around the hometowns of the unlucky captives.

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