Onus on govt to take Opposition seriously
TWO-TIME UK Prime Minister and Conservative statesman Benjamin Disraeli once said: “No government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.” We know that the task of the Opposition in a parliamentary system is to hold the government accountable for acts of omission and commission, to ask questions, to participate in policymaking through membership of committees, to raise issues on the floor of the two Houses, and to propose alternatives. The Opposition is central to the working of parliamentary democracy.
The Opposition has the legitimate right to interrogate the government because Parliament is a proxy for the political public. Members of Parliament represent the citizens of India: their diverse interests, differing opinions, specific needs and their own vision of a good society. Since each member of the Lower House is elected by the masses, he or she stands in a relationship of equality with other members, irrespective of whether ‘this’ or ‘that’ party has secured a majority in the last election.
One party might secure a majority and form the government for five years. This does not entitle members of the ruling party to ignore or belittle members of the Opposition. The latter also represent the people. Because they represent the plurality of India’s political public, the opinions of the Opposition must be taken seriously by the ruling party; they must count. No MP should be humiliated simply because his or her party did not secure a majority in the last election.
In any case, few governments secure an absolute majority of the vote share. The BJP won 37.7 per cent of the votes in the 2019 General Election. Even if we take the combined vote share of the NDA, it does not reach 51 per cent. The implication is that a majority of the electorate did not vote for the party currently in power, but for other parties. Their representatives mostly occupy the Opposition benches. By ignoring or insulting the Opposition, the ruling party insults that section of the political public that did not vote for it. Half of India’s voters are rendered politically irrelevant by the politics of numbers. Our rulers forget that the majority principle is not ethical; it is merely workable.
It is apparent that we are in a middle of an institutional meltdown and parliamentary government has slid into personalised rule by a populist leader. According to textbook populism, leaders blithely wave away institutions and establish a direct relationship with the people. But institutions are designed to mediate between the people and the awesome structure of power we call the government. The insistent undermining of institutions, as evinced in the battle between the highest court of the land and the executive, render citizens vulnerable to the exercise of power in all its arrogance and overweening ambition to dominate popular imagination.
Today, the status of the Opposition is being relentlessly subverted. An Opposition leader has to but voice his/her reservations on the way the country is being run and he/she is mocked at, insulted, rubbished and dismissed as if he/she just does not count. This is a dangerous trend because no one party or leader should be making policy in isolation from other trends of public opinion. Intelligent, responsive and democratic policy-making requires widespread debate and discussion; it involves the resolution of disagreements as well as skilled persuasion to arrive at an agreement. It is the job of the Opposition to raise questions about the way the government is being run. It is the responsibility of the government to respond to these questions, to share information, and to invite the Opposition to participate in decision-making.
Last week, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, an elected representative of the people, raised questions in Parliament about the Prime Minister’s alleged relationship with tycoon Gautam Adani. It was the duty of the government to reply to the questions that had already been raised in the public sphere by concerned citizens. Instead of reassuring the country that the government planned to investigate the issue, and do something about it, the Prime Minister expended an enormous amount of energy in elaborating on topics that had nothing to do with the issue at hand. It was only when the Supreme Court intervened that the Centre agreed to the formation of a court-appointed expert committee to probe the Hindenburg-Adani matter.
Of course, Members of Parliament will attack each other; the stakes are very high after all. What we miss is clever repartee and arguments that are sophisticated, humorous, learned and subtle. Mark Twain once said in his inimitable fashion: “Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humour. Genuine humour is replete with wisdom.” Even bitter political opponents can practise the art of civility. Why don’t they laugh with each other instead of laugh at each other? Only then they might realise, perhaps, that all of them represent the people of India, and that in practising incivility towards their political opponents, they practise incivility towards us. Parliament is a debating forum and we look forward to the cut and thrust of intellectual and politically acute arguments between adversaries in the arena of debate. Leaders should use their wit and intelligence to counter opponents. What we do not expect is that they will talk past each other.
