Dawn - August 7, 2004 | Op-Ed.
Confrontation just won't do
By Kuldip Nayar
It is official. The RSS is now guiding the BJP in formulating its political moves. The uncompromising line that the BJP has been adopting in parliament cannot but be the thinking of a fanatic group which is reckless in its approach and destructive in action.
Otherwise, it is beyond the realm of conjecture that a political party should be bent on destroying the parliamentary democracy of which it is an integral part. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a gathering of editors in Delhi recently that the harm the stalling of parliament was doing to the polity was "serious" and could harm the institution.
The RSS is not, however, worried over the criticism. It has no faith in parliamentary democracy and considers it a western concept. D.P. Thengadi, one of RSS's leading lights, has said: "The constituent assembly imposed British-type institutions on the people." He criticised also the foreign inspiration of parliamentary democracy.
The BJP's behaviour after the polls has been all the more disappointing. Some had begun to believe that the party had changed a bit because of its compulsions in a pluralistic society.
Despite being a member of the Sangh parivar, the party looked less rigid and more open to talks and interaction. The leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee gave the BJP an image which was at times mistaken for liberalism. The manner in which he led the 24-party coalition created the impression as if the party had come to appreciate the value of consensus.
That the tainted ministers should have quit the Manmohan Singh government goes without saying. Probably left to him, he would have seen their back long ago. But the Congress party he heads in parliament would not stay in power if the Rashtriya Janata Dal of railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and his tainted colleagues were to withdraw the support. Its strength of 23 members is crucial.
Manmohan Sing was frank enough before editors to admit that the choice before him was either to have the tainted ministers in his cabinet to save the coalition or to hand over power to the BJP. He said he even rang up Atal Behari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh to request them to allow the parliament to function. They did not agree.
In fact, the BJP seems to have declared a war against not only the Congress-led government but parliamentary democracy itself. Otherwise, how do you explain that the two sessions of the parliament held so far after the election were practically disturbed on all days. The party's spokesmen have indulged in polemics, accusing the government of "negative and confrontationist approach towards the opposition."
I wish the BJP had spelt out what it meant by "negative and confrontationist attitude." Its own role in the last parliament - I was a witness to it in the Rajya Sabha - was worse. So far, the party has given vent to its frustration, making it obvious that it cannot remain without power.
The BJP has no face to speak about the tainted ministers. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi from the BJP and George Fernandes, convener of the National Democratic Alliance, are no less tainted. They never resigned from the Vajpayee government.
The first two were responsible for the killing of hundreds of people following the demolition of the Babri masjid. Against Fernandes, there is a regular inquiry commission sitting and examining his deals at the defence ministry.
To say that the charges against Advani and Joshi are of a different nature is to challenge the jurisprudence that makes no distinction between crimes.
I cannot understand why the BJP continues to behave like an aggrieved party when it comes to the dismissal of governors. The party acted in the same way as the Congress did and dismissed the governors appointed by the governments headed by Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral.
In fact, both the Congress and the BJP have reduced the institution to a pinjrapole where the aged and discarded animals are kept till their death. What is required is a serious debate on the utility of the institution which the ruling parties are misusing.
The display of Vajpayee's photograph on the highways, built during the BJP-led government, was a wrong thing to do to begin with. The allocation was from the public exchequer, not the party's coffers.
Why should the BJP leader be given credit for the money spent by the government? In fact, the party did something unforgivable: it removed Mahatma Gandhi's portraits from government offices and airports. Gandhi is the father of the nation. How does one interpret the BJP's bias against Gandhi?
Everything else can probably be pardoned, but not the saffronization of the system. Congress was bad enough in appointing its favourites here and there - and it has not learnt any lesson from the past - but the BJP eat all the records by handing over to the RSS nominees such institutions as were connected with education, information, social welfare and the like.
Yet, one of the BJP spokesmen had the temerity to say: "Unless we fought back this onslaught (ideological intolerance) from the very start, the pseudo-secularists will only intensify their campaign against."
The nation has not yet recovered from the BJP's role of "intolerance" in Gujarat. The Supreme Court is still trying to retrieve justice from the debris of death and destruction. How can a few secularists match the din of fundamentalism that the BJP, the Bajrang Dal, the Hindu Vishwa Parishad and the likes have raised?
After having injected communalism into the system, the BJP is now after parliament which still represents pluralism and democracy. The Congress did its best to destroy its ethos during the emergency (1975-77). People asserted themselves to save democracy and the parliamentary system was restored.
The BJP is trying to hit at the very roots of parliament. Its NDA has declared that it will not join the parliament's standing committees that scrutinize budget proposals and legislative business at length. This is an obligation which the electorate put on the members they return.
The boycott is a betrayal of their trust. In the committees, I can say from my experience, members do rise above the party line and make substantial contribution to improve the draft bills placed before them.
The debate in the committees is bound to suffer because it will be a one-sided affair. The real loss will be that of the polity which is enriched by the different points of view. Since most of the opposition leaders chair the standing committees, the absence of the BJP and its allies may reduce the exercise to a farce.
It is apparent that the ruling United Progressive Alliance and the NDA in the opposition have still to come to terms with each other. The ideological differences are known to everyone and elections showed that. But their resolve to rise above party considerations for the country's good is yet to be proved.
The real problem is not about the views of political parties but how they are held. In a democratic system, there can be no room for imposition. The prime minister rightly said at the farewell of the retired Rajya Sabha members that the country needed "a cooperative democracy." Both the Congress and the BJP, particularly the latter, have a long way to go in imbibing that spirit.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
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