From farce to tragedy

Lord Jaswant Singh of Kandahar hadn't an iota of evidence to show that there was a

"mole," who passed on nuclear information to the United States, in PV Narasimha Rao's inner circle

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Mr Singh first pretended there was more to this matter than he had disclosed in his self-promoting book. The book, "A Call to Honour," whitewashes everything dishonourable in the Bharatiya Janata Party's years in power, including its decision to cross the nuclear threshold and corrupt India's foreign policy, its free-market dogmas, and above all, the Gujarat carnage.

Mr Singh offered to name the "mole" -- only to the Prime Minister, on request. He insinuated that he is a civil servant, since retired and now living abroad. But when confronted with names, he backed out. Then he cited a letter from a US "Senator," which turned out to be a forgery.

The Session's second half is being consumed by another trivial issue: a media leak of the Pathak Commission's report on the Iraq oil-for-food scam before it was presented to Parliament.

This has been turned into a "breach-of-privilege" issue by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the Regional-3 -- Samajwadi Party, Telugu Desam, and AIADMK. These parties have also attacked the report.

It's legitimate to cast doubt on the Pathak panel's integrity. The former chief justice imposed a patently unjust Union Carbide-drafted settlement upon the Bhopal gas victims. For exonerating one of the greatest corporate criminals, he was rewarded with a position on the International Court of Justice.

However, neither that, nor the politics behind the Volcker commission, clears Mr Natwar Singh of the charge of facilitating the Iraqi contracts. Although there's no evidence that he received oil money, he introduced some of its recipients to the Iraqis.

The SP-TDP-AIADMK have a narrow, opportunist motive for backing the privilege motion -- embarrassing the Congress. But there's no prima facie evidence of any breach of Parliamentary privilege. Nothing suggests that an official body leaked the Pathak report. In any case, a leak involves impropriety, not breach of privilege.

The legitimate way to fight the Congress is to dissect the Pathak report, and question Volcker's selective naming of names. But the Regional-3 are looking for cheap gains.

The SP is keen to recruit Mr Singh as its Jat face -- as replacement for Mr Ajit Singh. The BJP's real, indeed only, target is Ms Sonia Gandhi -- regardless of facts. She's a "foreigner." But that's irrelevant to the issue.

There's been more shadow-boxing than debate in Parliament so far. Even on the India-US nuclear deal the emphasis is on procedure, not substance. The question being asked is not whether the deal is in India's interest and promotes world peace -- or doesn't. Rather, it's whether the US Congress has changed the goalposts.

For those from the Left, who criticised the original deal, this should be of much less consequence than basic opposition to an India-US "strategic partnership."

They can't treat the original deal as sacrosanct and keep silent on issues like sovereignty (which lies in people, not mass-destruction weapons), global nuclear disarmament, and the environmental effects of nuclear power.

Those who attack the deal from the Right are even more inconsistent. If the deal compromises India's security, it cannot be remedied by minor changes in the US Bills, and even less by the PM's assurances.

However, the BJP doesn't even behave like a proper, sincere, principled Right-wing party, which takes ideology seriously. It is obsessed with attacking the Congress on every conceivable issue, with or (generally) without reasoning.

The time claimed by this incredibly noisy and futile Parliamentary debate carries a heavy opportunity cost: issues worthy of serious debate are bypassed, major Bills are shelved or rushed through, and precious opportunities to improve governance squandered.

Typically, 40 to 65 percent of all Bills listed for a Parliament Session are skipped. In this Session, for instance, important business like 33 percent reservations-for-women, social security for unorganised workers, and drastic changes in the Right to Information Act won't be taken up.

Consider the long-term process. Over two decades, the number of annual Parliament sittings has shrunk by a fifth.

Typically, Parliament now devotes only 14 percent of its time to legislative business, compared to 48 percent in the first two Lok Sabhas. Its time is taken up in procedural matters, acrimonious exchanges or noisy walkouts, not in voicing people's concerns or discussing important events.

Parliamentary questions and the Zero Hour are important democratic institutions. Even cynical politicians and bureaucrats answer Parliament questions relatively honestly--on pain of personal penalty.

But now the number of questions permitted during Zero Hour has been reduced to 10. The proportion of starred questions -- on which further debate is allowed -- has decreased. As has the quality of the answers. This bodes ill for transparency.

This should cause concern among our leaders, in and outside government. By trivialising Parliamentary discourse, they risk damaging the greatest assets they possess in the eyes of the people: credibility and legitimacy.

Without these, our leaders won't count for toffee. The era of manipulative politics, in which people voted naively, has ended. Identity representation isn't enough. People want direct power -- and transparency.

Today's outcry over the government's disgraceful attempt to exempt file notings from the RTI Act is an expression of this grass-roots urge. People want to know how their money is spent, how corruption can be eliminated, how governments can become more responsive.

That's why the growing demand that policies should be approved by Parliament, and that Parliament should ratify all international agreements.

The thrust of all these is greater transparency and accountability from every institution, every official. If Parliament lets the people down, it will jeopardise India's own future as a democracy. From farce, we would then move to a true tragedy.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.