Whether politics is guided by morals or not is a moot point. But India has proved that democracy knows no morals. We have fiercely flaunted before the world, particularly our neighbours, who oscillate between dictatorship and democracy of sorts, that we have the democratic system in position. But when the time came to prove it, we were found wanting. It is not only the Congress and the BJP which fell from the minimum standards of integrity. All political parties, including the Left, played an opportunistic game.
The real test came at the recent parliament session when the Manmohan Singh government sought in the Lok Sabha a vote of confidence after the withdrawal of the Left's support to it. The government said that the motion was also meant to get an approval for the Indo-US nuclear deal. On both counts, it won.
The margin of victory was 19 votes, 275 against 256 in a 543-member house. Ten members abstained and two stayed away. It was not a resounding win but it was more than expected. What was not expected was the extent to which the two sides went to corner members: some were purchased, a few were lured by ministerial offers and many were influenced in the name of communalism and caste, increasingly a staple diet for Indian voters.
The scene that disfigured the image of parliament the most was the display of bundles of currency notes by three BJP members. They heaped them on the table of the Lok Sabha and alleged that Rs10 million (Dh890,000) was given to each as advance to abstain from voting. This abruptly ended a high-level debate, rare in parliament.
The person who brought the cash and handed it over to the three MPs was recorded by a leading TV channel which preferred not to telecast it but to give a copy to the BJP. The original was deposited with the Speaker. Why the channel indulged in a sting operation for a political party is not known, but it is obvious that it did it for the BJP. Unethical, and it is something that the channel will have to live with.
Another last minute allegation made after the lunch interval on the second day was that a Central Bureau of Investigation official had threatened UP chief minister Mayawati's members not to vote against the motion if he wanted to save her from the case of disproportionate assets. This is also a matter that needs scrutiny because the CBI, a department of the central government, has been used by for all purposes.
Common strategy
The Left behaved in the same crass manner as others did. It is sad but true that a CPI-M member injected long before the debate the point that the nuclear deal with America was anti-Muslim. The Left was not in purchasing business but in formulating a common strategy and coordinating moves with the BJP and Mayawati, a casteist leader. There was no ideology involved except thuggery.
India has created yet another history: Secularism and communalism are the two sides of the same coin. Prakash Karat, secretary general of CPI-M, and A.B. Bhardhan of the CPI have given a new meaning to casteism by kowtowing before Mayawati and to communalism by having constant contacts with the BJP leaders through mobile phones.
I am not worried about the mechanisation of these parties. They need to be written off. But I am worried about the nation which finds that even the Left has ceased to have any principles. When power, overt or covert, comes to dictate democracy, the scenario is bound to be ugly. This is what has been witnessed in the country over the years. Had the people's faith in democratic institutions not been resolute, India would have gone the neighbours' way
I think a commission headed by a Supreme Court judge is needed to reconstruct the story from the beginning, with inputs from intelligence agencies or other sources. The disclosures may be appalling, but they may throw up certain measures to stem the rot. In any case, the pieces have to be picked up to overhaul the system. The post-debate period is going to be important because new alignments will come into being for the next elections, due in March-April.
Voting the government out
I wish the issue had been the nuclear deal. But it boiled down to voting out the government. The deal is flawed on many points. When the West itself is abandoning nuclear energy because even a small leakage can create havoc, it is no more a matter of discussion. We, in Rajasthan, have experienced how people living around the plant are suffering from one disease or the other.
Affecting our sovereignty is the Hyde Act which clearly states that it is the policy of the US to secure India's cooperation on a number of issues involving Iran, including its capability to reprocess nuclear fuel (in spite of the fact that Iran, as an NPT signatory, has the right to enrich uranium for use in light-water reactors). This has nothing to do with the nuclear deal and can only be related to influencing our foreign policy. Recent statements by Gary Ackerman, chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, regarding Indo-Iran gas pipeline, only heightens such suspicions.
The Lok Sabha debate has tragically shown that the UP-type politics has come to the centre. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, rivals in the state, have seen to it that the type of working where there are no holds barred is followed at New Delhi as well.
Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.
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