All for bandhs

The political class doth protest too muchAtilde;?BOTH Houses of Parliament have witnessed touching scenes wherein the whole political clas...

The political class doth protest too muchAtilde;?BOTH Houses of Parliament have witnessed touching scenes wherein the whole political class faultlessly executed a manoeuvre technically termed as 8220;cutting across party lines8221;.

The provocation for this rare unanimity of purpose? Corruption, the professed reason for the Prime Minister8217;s helplessness? The oil pool deficit, which continues to grow apace after months of fruitless debate? The fragile unity within the ruling Front? No, the provocation was the extremely sensible ruling of the Kerala High Court, declaring bandhs called by political organisations illegal. Finally, our politicians have found the common ideological ground that can hold them together. It is something that has little to do with the general good. Unfortunately, it concerns the fortunes of the political class alone.

The people elect their representatives to give them a voice in Parliament, not to look after the interests of their own class. One wonders, therefore, if any of the MPs now making loud noises about judicial activism have bothered to take the opinion of the community they represent.

Interestingly, these very MPs have applauded the judiciary when it was perceived to be overstepping its brief in matters which did not really affect them when development projects have been stalled on technical grounds on which courts are really not competent to rule.

These cases had a direct bearing on the quality of life of the masses, but that does not appear to have been a factor with their representatives. Bandhs, too, affect ordinary lives in ways that are at best irritating, at worst violent. They are used by parties to express their comprehensive power over the lives of the people. And yet, their perpetrators are tagging the High Court ruling with that catchall invective invented by the Left: anti-people8217;.

In reality, though, it is anti-government, and hence all the sound and fury. The bandh finds its purest expression when it is called by a ruling party. In West Bengal 8212; and until very recently in Kerala too 8212; the most successful bandhs are all instigated by the CPIM.

Successful in the sense that they cause the greatest possible dislocation of life, that is. People are prevented from getting on with their work, travelling, consulting their doctors, dealing with emergencies, even cremating their dead by this apparently benign, pro-people form of protest by their own elected government.

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In any other nation, a ruling party that has to take to the streets to make a point would find both its rule and its credibility coming to an end with alarming rapidity. What does a ruling party have to protest against? Itself? By the logic of democracy, that would necessarily follow, though bandhwallahs are extremely inventive in selecting their targets.

Nowhere else could an electorate be trifled with and taken for granted in this manner. Only in India could elected representatives regard, with complete equanimity and unanimity, a ruling party bandh as a valid form of political action, the latest being the Bihar bandh called by the ruling RJD.

Any bandh is a form of political tyranny. When it is part of the ruling party8217;s strategy, it becomes State tyranny. Neither is acceptable in a democracy.