DRAMA ON THE SIDELINES - From a socio-political movement to a political party

By Swapan Dasgupta

On the afternoon of December 8, the principal interest of ‘political’ India will be on the Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party encounter in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. If the BJP manages a conclusive victory by both holding its own and wresting at least one state from the Congress, it is likely to remove many obstacles in the path of Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial overdrive. If, on the other hand, the Congress somehow manages a 2-2 draw or even succeeds in wresting Chhattisgarh from the BJP, it will signal to its supporters that all is not lost and that the UPA remains in the 2014 election race.  

The natural focus on the fortunes of the Congress and BJP should not, however, divert attention from a fascinating sub-plot of the Assembly election, in Delhi at least: the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party as a possible third alternative.

As I see it, counting day on December 8 will be marked by three possible outcomes for the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP that was born as an offshoot of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption crusade and battle for a Janalokpal Bill.

For the new entrant to electoral politics, the most spectacular outcome would lie in its ability to translate the 28 per cent or so of popular votes—as predicted by the CSDS-Lokniti-CNN-IBN pre-poll survey last month—into seats. This would mean that neither the BJP nor the Congress will be in a position to form a government in the National Capital. For the AAP, which is barely a year old in electoral politics, this would be a colossal achievement. It would indicate that there is a meaningful space available in large parts of India for what is being flaunted as “alternative politics”. 

The second scenario that could be moderately satisfying for the AAP would lie in its ability to secure a small toehold in the Delhi Assembly.  Although the third party wouldn’t be able to avert a Congress or BJP victory—and, in fact, would actually contribute to the outcome by playing spoiler—it would have carved out a niche for itself in the civic life of Delhi. In other words, the AAP would have laid the foundations of a potentially larger role for itself in politics. Depending on how it conducted itself in the next few years, it would be in a position to either advance or shrink into irrelevance.

For the AAP, the most disheartening outcome would lie in its inability to either win seats or prevent any party from securing a clear mandate. In the event of such a result, we can almost visualise tearful scenes in the AAP offices on the realisation that the stupendous energy and enthusiasm displayed by its youthful volunteers hasn’t proved contagious. The sense of disappointment is likely to prompt its idealistic supporters to either eschew electoral politics altogether and revert to NGO-type activism or turn to more extremist causes.

At this stage of the campaign, when the AAP is experiencing both the exhilaration of possible popular support and the murkiness that is associated with securing votes, it is hazardous to predict which of these outcomes is most likely. If the feedbacks from the Congress and BJP camps are any indication, it would seem that the support for the AAP is extremely patchy and not sufficiently concentrated to enable the party to win seats. As the campaign gathers momentum, it is becoming sufficiently clear that many AAP candidates, while exemplary individuals, lack both the local connections and the organisational networks to fully convert goodwill into votes. The absence of enough candidates with local links could explain why there was an attempt by the AAP leadership to try and rope in individuals from established parties who were disappointed at not getting the party nomination. This departure from the high idealism of “alternative politics” was revealing and suggested that purity and saintliness are not always practical in democratic politics.

Not that these occasional lapses should divert attention from the fact that regardless of the actual results of the Delhi election, the AAP has had a visible impact on the political culture. The more established political parties can ignore the larger AAP impact at their own peril.

The most profound impact has been in the AAP thrust on the personal integrity of the political leadership. The BJP may not open acknowledge it but it is undeniable that its midway course correction in discarding Vijay Goel and replacing him with Dr Harshvardhan was a direct consequence of the AAP’s spirited quest for ethical politics. Goel, a former minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, was no doubt an energetic leader with a taste for razzmatazz. Unfortunately for him, he was perceived as a politician who was cut from the same cloth as Pramod Mahajan. Compared to him, Dr Harshvardhan, a low-key medical practitioner from East Delhi with a fierce reputation for personal integrity, was regarded as someone who provided a meaningful alternative to the Congress’ perceived mega-corruption. If the BJP manages to prevail in Delhi with its new chief ministerial candidate, much of the credit must go the AAP for forcing a change of guard at the eleventh hour.  

Unfortunately, however, the AAP impact has been confined to the top of the political pile. In the matter of choosing local candidates, both the national parties have kept a sharp eye on the winning potential of individuals.

An associated feature of the AAP impact is in the realm of political funding. By upholding the sanctity of transparent, voluntary contribution by individuals, the AAP has taken a modest step in the right decision. Political parties are disproportionately dependant on cash contributions by either corporates and local business or kickbacks from government contracts to contribute to the larger process of clean politics. The AAP example may actually force the mainstream parties into taking some steps towards transparent fund collection.

Finally, in using the energy and commitment of its volunteers to spread its message, the AAP has definitely contributed towards imaginative, low-cost electioneering. It has relied more on innovative methods and direct voter contact than the established political parties whose appeal to voters is more linked to the mass media and are, consequently, more impersonal. In particular, the rediscovery of old-style persuasion is a positive trend and could, in the long run, contribute towards reducing the high levels of alienation that ordinary people have for politics and politicians.

Conventional wisdom and past experience suggest that the transition from a socio-political movement to a political party can be extremely troublesome.  The impact of Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and Ram Lila maidan was considerable and played a huge role in destroying the credibility of the UPA-2 Government. If there are times the re-election of a Congress-led government at the Centre seems near-impossible in 2014, much of the credit goes to the veteran Gandhian who highlighted its departure from ethical politics. However, the decision of the activists who organised the Anna movement in Delhi to branch out to electoral politics has proved more contentious, not least because there is a definite impression that the anti-corruption platform is a shield for political agendas that would otherwise not appeal to the middle classes. The AAP is a coalition of very disparate elements who are awaiting the outcome of the Delhi polls to reveal their true colours. Post-December 8, the further fragmentation of this amorphous body of activists seems unavoidable.  

The Telegraph, November 22, 2013

AMORPHOUS AAP EASY TO MANIPULATE

By Swapan Dasgupta

The ABP News-Nielsen survey—one of the handful of opinion polls that actually undertakes fieldwork, as opposed to the ones which are based on suspect methodology—has suggested that, as things stand, the BJP will emerge as the single largest party in the forthcoming elections to the Delhi Assembly. However, its survey has also indicated that it will not secure an outright majority thanks to the Aam Aadmi Party of Arvind Kejriwal which will hold the balance of power in the Assembly by securing eight of the 70 seats.

For a party that was formed less than a year ago, the AAP’s projected performance is very impressive, particularly since it is suggested that it will secure the support of people who in normal circumstances would have voted for either the BJP or Congress. And although cynics may say that a projected win in 8 seats is way below the levels of euphoria witnessed during the anti-corruption festivals of Anna Hazare two years ago, there is little doubt that both the national parties fear that the AAP’s role as a spoiler is certain to be considerable. The question on the lips of Delhi’s local politicians is: who will the AAP damage more?

There are still some three months left for the elections and it will take all the ingenuity of the AAP to either maintain or increase its levels of support in the face of a twin offensive. Those who are inclined to support the AAP as an expression of disgust with conventional politics may, on voting day, prefer to vote for a party that can secure a majority rather than register a protest vote. Kejriwal may well succeed in pinning Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to her constituency but its other candidates could well suffer the disappointments experienced by well-meaning candidates of the Loksatta Party in Bangalore in the Assembly elections earlier this year. Past experience suggests that fringe players are mostly unable to translate the tacit endorsements by the English-language media into winning performances.

As things stand, the AAP has projected itself as a protest movement that is intent on evolving what its more articulate faces have grandly described as “alternative politics”. In actual practice this has involved publicising scams and expressing popular anger against civic shortcomings, notably the exorbitant hikes in electricity user charges. These activities, often accompanied by some drama, has earned the AAP a justified reputation as a crusader against the cosy consensus that has defined politicians of both the ruling Congress and the BJP.

The AAP has by and large steered clear of national issues. However, where its spokespersons have intervened on loftier issues than the potholes of Delhi, they have come out as variants of the so-called “people’s movements” that are in the forefront of agitations against, say, the nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, the POSCO steel project in Orissa and the bid to raise the height of the Narmada dam. AAP spokespersons have described the Land Acquisition Bill as a capitulation to corporate interests and Yogendra Yadav, one of its leading intellectuals, went so far as to describe the performance of Narendra Modi in Gujarat as a monumental ‘con job’. In pure ideological terms, some stalwarts of the AAP have shown themselves to be in sympathy with the so-called “idea of India” as articulated by the Congress. Yadav may well protest against the attempt to exclude him from the UGC on account of his AAP membership. But if political preference is what defines an individual’s membership of government-controlled ‘autonomous’ bodies, the fact that Yadav was included by the UPA Government in the first place suggests that there was a broad convergence of political views to begin with.

Whether the radical positions taken by individual AAP stalwarts indicate a party ‘line’ or personal views is a matter of conjecture. We certainly know that the group which broke away from Anna’s movement had differences with the old Gandhian on issues such as the participation of Baba Ramdev and the governance record of Modi. It is also know that many of those who were founder-members of the AAP ranged from orphaned Lohia-ites, disoriented Maoists and erstwhile practitioners of identity politics. Whether people from such diverse backgrounds can suddenly sink their different orientations and forge a coherent political party is not known. At this stage it is impossible to escape the conclusion that there is a clutch of motivated activists who have banded together to try and shape a protest movement in their own image.

This is not an unfamiliar tactic. The Labour Party in Britain was, for example, plagued from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s by the meance of ‘entryism’. In essence, this consisted of extreme Left groups, differentiated from each other by abstruse theoretical disputes, joining the Labour Party and trying to take it over from within. It was their pressure that facilitated a sharp turn to the Left and made Labour unelectable for nearly two decades.

My own sense is that we are witnessing something similar in the AAP: an attempted hijack of the rump of a genuine mass movement by various shades of radical politics. The AAP has lots of raw energy but its amorphousness has made it an easy target of manipulation. Don’t be surprised if in the coming weeks, as the requirements of finance acquire urgency, the AAP becomes an undercover wing of the dirty tricks department of the party that wants to cling on to power at any cost in the Delhi Government. 

Sunday Pioneer, September 8, 2013

SHARING THE ROT - Corruption is now evenly spread among Indian political parties

By Swapan Dasgupta

Earlier this week members of the Lok Sabha cutting across party lines were incensed by speeches made at Anna Hazare’s rally in Delhi’s Janatar Mantar last Sunday. If the angry interventions by the Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, National Democratic Alliance convenor Sharad Yadav and Congress backbencher Sanjay Nirupam were anything to go by, MPs felt they were being caricatured and vilified by over-sanctimonious representatives of ‘civil society’ who wanted to enjoy power sans responsibility. Moved by the anger of the elected representatives, the Lok Sabha carried a ‘sense of the House’ resolution censuring members of Team Anna who, it would seem, were also itching for a fight that would pit politicians against the anti-corruption crusaders.

The social media isn’t entirely an accurate representation of the true feelings of the Man from Matunga. In India, the barrier imposed by the English language has ensured that this new form of individual and collective expression remains, by and large, an instrument in the hands of the educated middle classes. Yet, despite its social limitations, it is noteworthy that the indignation of the MPs found almost zero support among the ‘twitterati’. Instead, the general disdain for politicians articulated by the likes of Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal was multiplied many times over in Twitter messages and Facebook postings.

It is always hazardous to draw profound sociological conclusions from this mismatch of perceptions. The improved turnout at the recently-concluded elections to five State Assemblies would suggest that despite misgivings over the integrity of their elected representatives, the people of India are in no mood to jettison parliamentary democracy and take recourse to non-Constitutional means to effect change. There is precious little in the political conduct of the Indian people that is likely to give encouragement to radical dissidents such as Arundhati Roy and armed Maoists who claim to speak for the people. 

At the same time, there are reasons for those who have a stake in the future of India to be concerned over the creeping de-legitimisation of the political system. Arguably, this is not a new phenomenon. The years following Indira Gandhi’s massive election victories in 1971 and 1972 saw a significant rise in middle class unrest. The stir had its roots in both the failure of the Congress variety of socialism and the associated rise in corruption. The phenomenon was repeated in the period 1987-89 when Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘Mr Clean’ image was badly tarnished by the Bofors scandal and its attempted cover-up.

During both spells of breakdown in popular confidence in the elected government there was a perceptional difference between the classes and the masses. There was an Indian Establishment that coupled its concern over political uncertainty with faith in the Prime Minister and the ruling party. Its stabilising endeavours were, however, offset by a willingness of a large section of the middle classes to repose faith in either Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement or the Opposition grouping around Vishwanath Pratap Singh. In other words, every political crisis since the 1970s produced an alternative beacon of hope.

What should concern the custodians of national interest in India is not merely the state of rot in the Congress Party or evidence that a bunch of manipulative sharks have the ability to give a bad name to economic liberalisation. Equally alarming is the mounting evidence that the mood of cynicism, bordering on arrogance, isn’t confined to the ruling party alone: it has both infected and debilitated the Opposition. The belief that things will get better if the present government is booted out and replaced by relatively untainted people is proving to be increasingly unrealistic.  

What has made a world of difference is the termination of the Congress’ monopoly of political power. At one time, the Congress controlled the entire system and managed a network of patronage that began in the Prime Minister’s Office and worked its way down to the lowest rung of democracy. The process incorporated the institutions of government both at the Centre and the states, the public sector and even a struggling private sector. To be a ‘fixer’ in the early-1970s, a person had to be well plugged into the Congress Party in its entirety and the bureaucracy. The Opposition parties did occasionally manage crumbs—mainly to offset their nuisance value—but it is no exaggeration to say that parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and the various offshoots of Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialist movement operated on shoe-string budgets and were disproportionately dependant on modest contributions from members and sympathisers. It is also a fact that the non-Congress parties were far more conscious of the need to extract full mileage from every rupee spent on elections. By contrast, the Congress could always bank on an unending supply of funds.

The real test of integrity, a veteran politician once told me, is dependent on opportunities. “A man may be honest because he has had no opportunity to be dishonest. The real test is to see how he reacts in the face of temptation.”  

Since 1991, Indian politics has witnessed three significant changes. First, the Congress’ monopoly over power at all levels is a thing of the past. Parties such as the BJP and regional parties are well entrenched and in command of the states. Secondly, the removal of the licence-permit-quota raj after 1991 devolved a great deal of economic decision-making to the states. Indeed, states now began competing among themselves to attract investments leading to a new regime of sops and incentives. Finally, the two decades of liberalisation have produced areas of spectacularly high growth and patches of obscene prosperity. Although inequality and unemployment persists, there is more money floating about the country than at any time before. Mining and real estate in particular are witnessing a boom, and local politicians have been quick to exploit opportunities from the lease of mines and the conversion of land use.

One of the emerging features of India’s political economy is the connection between corruption and prosperity: the higher the growth rates the more rewarding is political life. The real cost of elections, in turn, are linked to the relative levels of prosperity. Elections in Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the North-eastern states are still relatively low cost compared to the southern states (minus Kerala), Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and even Rajasthan. Among the high growth states, only Gujarat has been able to escape the insidious consequences of big money power—and that has to do with Narendra Modi converting Assembly elections into a de-facto referendum on himself.  

The net effect of these larger economic shifts is that it has boosted competitive politics and created a level playing field for all the major parties. The group that is not in power at the Centre is not automatically disadvantaged by its inability to wield national power. Marginalisation in Delhi is compensated by wielding power in the states.

In psychological terms, the hunger to replace a decrepit regime at the Centre has waned in the opposition ranks. The BJP, for example, is becoming less and less capable of popular mobilisation for the simple reason that its survival no longer depends on winning power everywhere. As long as it can hold on to some important states, its leaders are content.

In today’s India, corruption has become more evenly spread among political parties. This may explain why there is a political consensus against those in civil society who want to disrupt the cosy, new normal.


The Telegraph, March 30, 2012 

Protests fail, politics win

By Swapan Dasgupta

The only talking point the Congress had after its ignominious performance in the by-election to the Hissar parliamentary by-election was that the last minute campaign by Anna Hazare’s followers contributed little to the final outcome. For all its national impact during Hazare’s fast last August, the India against Corruption’s ability to influence electoral politics still remains untested—the movement curiously desisted from directly intervening in the by-election to the Kharakvasla Assembly constituency in Maharashtra. Consequently, the only definite conclusion that can be drawn from the Congress’ spate of by-election debacles is that anti-incumbency has benefited the principal anti-Congress parties.

The ferocity of anti-Congress feelings is something that should hearten the national opposition, particularly the BJP which sees itself as leading a future non-Congress dispensation. However, far from being encouraged by the trends, the BJP has given the impression of being exultant. So gung-ho is the mood in a section of the BJP that it is acting on the belief that the next general election has already been won and that the remaining fight is over who should occupy the Prime Minister’s post.

This strikes me as a classic case of irrational exuberance. If the political timetable remains unaltered, the next general election is due in May 2014, some 30 months away. In other words, there is still ample time for either the BJP to score self-goals and neutralise its present advantage or for the Congress to recover lost ground by providing the country with purposeful governance. Using analogy borrowed from the United States, what we are witnessing at present is just a run-up to the primaries, not even the primaries themselves.

Of course, the timetable could well be redrawn in the event of an abrupt collapse of the UPA Government. L.K. Advani has been making noises to that effect and, last week, even Mayawati joined in the public speculation over the longevity of a government that is lurching directionless from crisis to crisis.

Unfortunately for the Opposition, the scenario of abrupt collapse appears to be a case of wishful thinking. First, if the odds are heavily stacked against the ruling coalition, it is extremely unlikely that its MPs will be tempted to do anything rash. Secondly, and despite Sharad Pawar’s public criticism of the Government’s handling of the 2-G scandal, there is no evidence that either the DMK or Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (the two largest coalition partners) want to travel an alternative route. The DMK would prefer to keep its toehold at the Centre after the drubbing in Tamil Nadu; and Mamata, while fiercely independent in all matters concerning West Bengal, wouldn’t like to lose the considerable patronage powers the Indian Railways offer. Finally, and this is true for all entities going through a bad patch, the Congress is permanently hopeful that tomorrow. “Just wait for the Uttarakhand and Punjab polls” is a line frequently heard in Congress circles.

Barring an accident, a mid-term parliamentary election in 2012 looks extremely unlikely—and this is regardless of the outcome in next year’s state elections. By stressing the likelihood of an abrupt collapse some BJP leaders are ending up looking desperate. The hunger for power is regarded as a positive attribute for politicians in the so-called advanced democracies. In India, however, thanks to the distorting effects of Gandhian thought, the craving to be in government is perceived as something perverse and immoral. The anti-politician mood generated by Anna Hazare’s movement, particularly in the youth, has only served to heighten the revulsion for ‘power-hungry’ netas.

Advani failed to read this particular graffiti on the wall before embarking on his Jan Chetna yatra—a reason why the venture lacked punch. However, more important, by putting his prime ministerial ambition on public view, he made the one mistake an opposition party must avoid: shifting the gaze from the government to itself. Unless there is a profound ideological point that is being made—as happened during Advani’s Ram rath yatra in 1990—it is prudent for any ‘centrist’ opposition to keep the spotlight firmly on the government.

This may seem heretical to those in the saffron ranks intent on creating a Hindu version of the Tea Party movement by courting the outrageous. However, the sheer complexities of India and the uneven presence of the national parties throughout India negate the virtues of a conviction politician. Coalition politics is not necessarily a fig leaf for venality—as has happened in the UPA—but it is a trigger for the politics of aggregation. The major shifts in policy orientation by governments have rarely happened as a result on a resounding electoral endorsement. The people have been inclined to elect a government and then leave them alone to exercise the wisest policy option. Electoral politics, as opposed to the process of governance, has rarely been ideological.

At one time it seemed that the shortcoming of the BJP (and NDA) could lie in not projecting a leader to counter Rahul Gandhi. Today, as the heir apparent too struggles to overcome the anti-incumbency against the Congress, the inability or unwillingness to make the next election a presidential contest well turn out to be a significant advantage. The lesson from Hissar is that the traditional mould of Indian politics is broadly intact, despite Anna Hazare and a shrill electronic media. For the opposition, the real challenge is to keep its nerve for the next 30 months. 

Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, October 21, 2011

FIERCELY ON GUARD Parliamentary privileges need to be reviewed and clarified

By Swapan Dasgupta For the past fortnight, the ‘majesty’ and ‘dignity’ of Parliament have been repeatedly invoked by notables unsettled by the assertion of ‘people’s power’ on the streets of urban India. The agitation led by a septuagenarian Gandhian may have triggered a spontaneous outburst of anger in India’s assertive middle classes, but its insistence on the immediate enactment of a Jan Lokpal Bill has led critics to question the movement’s commitment to parliamentary democracy. Although many of these doubts were expediently brushed under the carpet last Saturday when both Houses of Parliament met and affirmed their commitment to Anna’s three demands, the simmering anger of MPs manifested itself two days later. The immediate provocation was two speeches made to the tricolour-waving audience in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan by supporters of Anna. The first was a rambling and somewhat inchoate intervention by actor Om Puri. Clearly swayed by the anti-politician mood of the audience, Puri described India’s Parliament as largely made up of “uneducated bumpkins”. The other performance was by former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi who dwelt on the duplicity of politicians in a manner that would have done a professional stand-up comic proud. Both speeches were widely telecast by news channels that had a ball covering the 12 days of street protests. Many MPs, not least those who felt humiliated by the insolence of ordinary people, protested angrily in Parliament. They demanded that Puri and Bedi be charged under powers vested in Parliament by Article 105(3) of the Constitution with breach of privilege—a potentially punishable offence where Parliament is both the accuser and the judge. The issue is before the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman who may refer the matter to the Privileges Committees of the two Houses. India’s Parliament has been inclined to be rather prickly in its condemnation of individuals who are outspoken in their attack on MPs and their conduct. In 1981, the Times of India was referred to the Privileges Committee for an article in which the author claimed that “Dacoits, smugglers and bootleggers are now honoured members of legislatures.” The publication escaped censure and possible punishment because the Rajya Sabha Chairman cleverly noted that the claim was not a libel of any particular MP or any House but “a libel in gross”. In August 1986, MPs were agitated by the assertion of Acharya Rajneesh (Osho) that “MPs are mentally under-developed. If investigations are made they would be found to have (a) mental age of 14.” The Rajya Sabha Chairman deflected the problem by stating that “It is inconsistent with our dignity to attach any importance to the vituperative outbursts or irresponsible statements of a frustrated person.” God men, he said by way of a parting shot, should leave good men alone. The examples can be multiplied but in most cases they have been resolved by either the accused tendering an unqualified apology or the presiding officer asserting that the House is contemptuous of reckless attacks. Apart from the case involving the Lohia-ite activist Keshav Singh whose jailing by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 1964 triggered a clash between the legislature and the judiciary (the matter being resolved by a Presidential reference to the Supreme Court) cases of privilege involving ‘disrespect’ to the legislature have largely been resolved without ugliness. Yet, despite the apologies by offenders and displays of generosity by the presiding officer, Parliament has fiercely guarded its nebulously defined privileges that extend to society at large—as opposed to those privileges and immunities necessary for the smooth internal functioning of both Houses. Article 105(3) stipulated that the special privileges of Parliament shall be defined “by law” and “until so defined” shall be those that prevailed before the enactment of the 44th amendment in 1978. Prior to 1978, it was defined by the precedents set by the House of Commons until 1950. It is revealing that in the past 60 years, Parliament has turned a blind eye to its obligations and not lifted a finger to codify its privileges and immunities into law. When the subject was last debated in 1994, most MPs were opposed to codification. This was in sharp contrast to Canada, Australia and New Zealand—countries that also traced their parliamentary privileges to the Bill of Rights (1689)—that have enacted laws defining parliamentary privilege. In the United Kingdom, a seminal report by a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, chaired by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, has become the de-facto rule book on the subject. The Nicholls Report defined parliamentary privilege as “the rights and immunities which the two Houses of Parliament and their members possess to enable them to carry out their parliamentary functions effectively.” It did not list privileges. Instead, it specified the functions legislative privilege sought to achieve—passing laws, holding the executive accountable and voicing the concerns of ordinary citizens. Protecting the reputation and dignity of Parliament was missing from the list. The Nicholls Report, in fact, suggested doing away with the right of the House to punish non-members. It suggested that disputes could be heard by the High Court under existing laws of libel and defamation. In any case, the last occasion a non-MP was committed by the order of the Commons was in 1880. A possible reason why India’s Parliament has shied away from codifying its privileges and immunities is the fear of judicial scrutiny. In 2005, there was a celebrated case in Canada centred on the arbitrary dismissal of the Speaker’s chauffer. It was claimed that the chauffer was not subject to normal labour laws and his appointment and dismissal was the privilege of Parliament. The Canadian Supreme Court disagreed. It insisted it was necessary to establish “the existence and scope of a category of privilege. Once the category is established, it is for Parliament, not the courts, to determine whether in a particular case the exercise of privilege is necessary or appropriate.” The message was clear: Parliament could not use its privileges and immunities arbitrarily. In a similar vein, the Nicholls Committee made parliamentary privileges subject to a “test of necessity”. Parliament, it noted, “should be vigilant to retain rights and immunities which pass this test, so that it keeps the protection it needs. Parliament should be equally vigorous in discarding rights and immunities not strictly necessary for its effective functioning in today’s conditions.” This expansive liberalism appears to be missing in India. The Rajya Sabha at Work stipulates that “Any investigation outside Parliament of anything that a member says or does in the discharge of his parliamentary duties amounts to serious interference with the member’s freedom of speech in the House. Therefore, to attack a member or to take or even threaten to take any action against him… on account of anything said or any vote given by him on the floor of the House would amount to gross violation of the privileges of a member.” Throughout the fortnight-long Anna stir, many Lok Sabha MPs were heard complaining in private of their inability to return to their constituencies and face irate people. At the same time, they also grudgingly acknowledged that these spontaneously exuberant protests were a facet of a democratic process that can’t be put under wraps in the interregnum between two elections. Tragically, this is precisely what the official guide to MPs privileges prescribes. And it is this mindset of aloofness that explains the strange determination of the Establishment to check dissent using Parliament’s extraordinary extra-judicial powers. Some of these powers are necessary but many are now woefully dated. The Telegraph, September 2, 2011

A Series of Errors: With Anna Hazare, the Government dialled a wrong number

By Swapan Dasgupta
Among my most enduring memories of the Emergency—which, mercifully, I experienced fleetingly, being overseas for most of the time—was an overheard conversation between two ‘progressive’ faculty members of Delhi University in early-July, 1975. One of the two gleefully told the other of the strange shortage of teachers in the Sanskrit Department. “Most of them have been arrested”, he chuckled. There was neither outrage nor fear in his voice, just a puerile delight.
The subtext of his happiness was clear to those of us familiar with the University. The Sanskrit Department, or so the stereotype went, was dominated by ‘Jana Sanghis’ and ‘chaddiwallas’ (the pejorative colloquialism for RSS members) and, as such, were unworthy of sympathy, never mind solidarity. In those fear-filled days, there were two ends of the University. At the privileged pole stood the ‘progressives’—Congress activists, Communist Party of India members and ‘friends of the Soviet Union’—and the other end were the outcasts—those associated with what the ‘progressives’ dubbed Right-wing, communal and casteist (read Lohia-ite) parties.
According to the ‘progressive’ version of history, faithfully narrated by India’s most prominent textbook historian, it was the desperation of the conservative, communal and casteist forces to “oust Indira Gandhi from power even if the legitimacy of the parliamentary process and the party system was put into jeopardy” that forced the Emergency. As the CPI cheer-leaders said in justification, circumstances demanded “a spirit of unity and urgency to inflict a decisive defeat on the forces of fascism and counter-revolution.” Since the Emergency was ostensibly imposed to save democracy from its enemies, it naturally followed that there was one place for Sanskrit-spouting enemies of constitutional government: jail.
The dramatic events in Delhi over the past few days, particularly the Prime Minister’s statement that the powers and sanctity of Parliament couldn’t be outsourced to the rabble on the streets is eerily reminiscent of the misplaced constitutionalism that led to the derailment of democracy 36 years ago. At that time too, it was a battle against corruption and arbitrariness that came to be viewed as a challenge to democracy and the parliamentary process. In terms of mobilisation, the Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement’s ability to get people out on the streets far exceeded the show of solidarity with Anna Hazare. On March 6, 1975, for example, JP led an eight-kilometre-long march to Parliament with a charter of demands that included the immediate dismissal of state governments in Bihar and Gujarat.
However, despite the apparent similarities it is facile to suggest that the Manmohan Singh Government’s approach to the Anna Hazare-led crusade for against corruption has produced an “Emergency-like” situation. There are important differences.
For a start, unlike Anna’s campaign which rests on spontaneity, media support and the endorsement of Magsaysay Award winners, the JP movement was far more organised and involved the active participation of nearly all the non-Communist opposition parties and their affiliated student wings. JP played the role of a symbolic leader but the activists were invariably attached to political parties. Many of today’s non-Congress politicians from Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar to Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi cut their political teeth in the JP movement.
In an age when the reach of the print media was fragmented and limited and the electronic media spewed government propaganda, the reliance on established political networks was understandably greater in 1974-75 than it is now. The Anna movement has consciously chosen to bypass the networks of political parties. This is partly because of the perception that the entire political class is the problem and partly because the so-called Team Anna is fearful of being eclipsed by politicians who are more accomplished in the extra-parliamentary game.
The detachment from organised politics has conferred a halo of moral superiority on Anna and given many TV channels a reason for extending support to an ostensibly trans-political (at times anti-political) initiative. However, it has paid a price for this exaggerated sense of virtuousness. The social depth of the Anna movement is limited: geographically it is confined to Metros and the bigger towns and socially it appeals mostly to students, the retired and small businessmen.
In another age, a movement centred on the frustrations of those who came of age with the post-1991 liberalisation would have worried a government but not triggered a panic. Compared to tremors caused by the Ayodhya movement and the Mandal agitation, Anna’s movement resembles a good-natured street festival. It is a commentary on the both the political ineptitude and the inherent fragility of the UPA Government that it was so thoroughly unsettled by Anna that the Prime Minister had to take cover behind a mythical operational autonomy of the Delhi Police chief.
It was the ‘Emergency mindset’ which initiated the series of miscalculations. Emboldened by its success in out-manoeuvring Baba Ramdev with duplicity and repression, the Government felt that the process could be repeated with Anna. The calculated manner in which the negotiations with Anna and his infuriatingly sanctimonious team was allowed to meander into irrelevance and the shrill campaign of character assassination that followed, provided clear indications of a brewing confrontation. Had the Government confined the clash to a war of words, it is entirely possible that the Anna campaign would have made injudicious utterances and ended up pitting their stage army of the good against a united political class.
The ‘Emergency mindset’ led to the Government converting an innocuous battle over an abstruse piece of legislation into widespread outrage over its scant respect for democratic rights. That high-handedness was also in evidence during the post-midnight police action against Ramdev’s followers two months ago. But the government got away relatively unscathed from that encounter partly because Ramdev made an ass of himself by trying to evade arrest by dressing up in women’s clothes and partly because media attitudes were shaped by modernist derision for a practitioner of yoga and herbal remedies. With Anna, however, the Government dialled a wrong number.
First, the pre-emptive morning arrest of Anna coupled with his peremptory despatch to Tihar Jail where the great symbols of corruption and venality are lodged were seen not merely as unfair but an attempt to mock an elderly man who had the country’s best interests at heart. It was the unfairness and the undemocratic response of the Government that provoked outrage. Secondly, the Government erred grievously in underestimating the obstinacy of a Gandhian. Anna, it would seem, has imbibed a sense of politics from his inspiration. Like Gandhi, his response to the government was combined of steely righteous determination with a clever sense of symbolism. His decision to decide the timing of his own release from Tihar was a masterstroke that left an already disoriented Government completely flummoxed. After 24 hours of pleading with Anna to leave prison, the Government surrendered unconditionally and accepted all his demands. Anna was not merely a winner but the Government, including the Prime Minister, was shown up to be disingenuous and duplicitous.
The surrender in Tihar exposed the fragility of the Government and made it look ridiculous. At the same time, quite intentionally, Manmohan Singh punctured the self-serving alarmism about an impending Emergency-type crackdown on civil rights. The Emergency was the contribution of a strong leader determined to prevail at all costs. Today, the political authority of the Government has been further eroded by a non-functioning dyarchy comprising a plasticine Prime Minister and a ‘youth icon’ whose role has been taken by a 73-year-old Gandhian. An Internal Emergency today is as likely as Don Quixote playing Stalin.

The Telegraph, August 19, 2011