At the end of the day, a political system can endure if it inspires trust and if all the stakeholders agree to play by the rules. In the course of more than six decades the Indian Constitution has struck deep roots in society because it enjoys a spectacular measure of legitimacy. Indeed, over the years there has been a common endeavour to ensure that even those who began life as sceptics or even rebels make the transition to Constitutional politics.
It is often forgotten that when India attained self-rule in 1947, there were important sectional players who had no faith in the new Republic. These included the Dravidian movement, the Communists and various ethnic separatists in Jammu & Kashmir and North-East India. It is a tribute to the popular faith in the Constitution and the far-sightedness shown by political leaders over the years that the numbers of those who want the system upturned or destroyed have shrunk. Yes, there are still rebel groups operating in the North-East, J&K and in the jungles of Chhattisgarh, but their activities can at best be called irritating. The Constitution enjoys a enviable degree of popular legitimacy.
One of the features of Constitutional Government — and one that inspires popular trust — is a robust and honest system of elections. Over the years, the conduct of free and fair elections in India has got better and better. There may be questions over the first-past-the-post system and whether it should be supplemented with some form of proportional representation. However, no one in their right minds can say with sincerity that the people’s will has been subverted by skulduggery. India has always got the Government the people have desired. And the Anti-Defection Act has negated the possibility of power being hijacked mid-stream.
Another feature of Constitutional Government that flows from an honest electoral system is the notion of a fixed-term Government. Apart from the Emergency when Parliament voted for its own life to be extended by two years, the term of a legislature has been set for a maximum of five years. This inviolable principle means that a Government has the right to govern for five years, following which it is obliged to return to the people. The Opposition is obliged to cool its heels but yet seek accountability from the Treasury benches for five years, after which it can have a shy at power.
The rules of the game have been followed by all political parties, whether they are in Government or the Opposition. The only exception was the Emergency when a nervous Prime Minister put democracy on hold for 19 months. Today, however, India is in the bizarre situation whereby the Constitutional arrangement is being threatened, not by the elected Government, but by a churlish Opposition that seems desperate to trigger a political breakdown.
I am of course referring to the Congress-managed disruption of the Rajya Sabha that may well succeed in disrupting two successive parliamentary sessions. It is not that sustained disruptions are rare. In the 10 years of UPA rule, the BJP also created enough bedlam to prevent the lok Sabha from functioning for long stretches at a time.
The Congress disruption of the Rajya Sabha is different on a number of counts. For one, the party seems determined to prevent the transaction of any business in the Rajya Sabha. It began in the Monsoon Session with the storm over lalit Modi’s passport and merged into a demand for the resignation of two Chief Ministers. Now, in the Winter Session, the Congress has shifted from one issue to another — beginning with a demand for Minister of State VK Singh’s resignation, moving thereafter to the National Herald controversy and maybe reverting to the issue of the two Chief Ministers next week — to prevent the Rajya Sabha from functioning.
The objective of the Congress is, of course, to prevent the passage of the Goods and Services Bill in the Rajya Sabha. Defeating the Bill with the force of superior numbers would have been a perfectly understandable and legitimate endeavour. The Opposition has every right to vote against any legislation proposed by the Government. It can, if need be, vote against all Government Bills blindly. However, the Congress has chosen a different approach: it wants to prevent the Rajya Sabha from functioning at all on one pretext or another.
The Congress approach is both adventurist and diabolical. At one level it wants to inconvenience the Government as much as possible. However, more ominously, it is seeking to create an unprecedented political-cum-constitutional crisis whereby the Government is unable to carry out any legislation at all in the remaining years of its tenure.
The Prime Minister complained last week that a Bill on workers’ bonus payments is held up because of the Congress disruption. His appeal to the Congress is, however, likely to fall on deaf ears. The Congress is intent on making the Government dysfunctional and innovative governance impossible for the remainder of its tenure. It is a low cost strategy: all you need is 40 or so MPs creating noise and swarming into the well of the House. And it is premised on the belief that an exasperated electorate will then vote Modi out in 2019.
In effect the Congress has proclaimed that it will not be bound down by Constitutional obligations and the rules of the game. What is happening is not sustained protest. We are witnessing an organised sabotage of the Constitution masterminded by leaders who believe that India is their private property. And that only they have the right to rule.
The Constitution must be protected from such saboteurs.