Facts of the matter

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision to call the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, and discuss the case against Pragya Thakur, followed up with a briefing from the national security adviser and other intelligence officials, is a welcome attempt to introduce a measure of fact-based rationality into what’s turning out to be a reckless and self-serving smear campaign. Besides giving the BJP a chance to backtrack on its dangerous position, this move is a reminder that no matter how deep ideological disagreements run, we cannot afford to not put the country first on matters like terrorism. The PM’s initiative is an attempt to take the politics out of it, to defuse the situation and point the way to pragmatic teamwork on issues that really matter.

If this issue is spun to become an election issue, pitting communities against each other and questioning the integrity of our investigative forces, it would send the discourse into a fact-free, destructive spiral and make it that much more difficult to effectively counter terrorism. Instead, sharing the details of the investigative process, and allaying anxieties — and crucially, being seen to be doing so — with clear evidence would ensure that anti-terror sleuthwork remains an essentially technical matter, out of the political fray. And this last, when the country is in the midst of the clutch of fiercely contested assembly elections, with the certainty of general elections to follow within months.

Along with reaching across the aisle for support on critical legislation, it is also important that opposition leaders are kept in the loop on matters of urgent concern — and conversely, opposition leaders must set partisan discord aside and take responsibility. In the context of the nuclear deal, this paper had suggested a system where parties with significant parliamentary presence could nominate MPs who could take an oath of secrecy and be allowed access to sensitive executive information. The same logic can be extended to vital intelligence reports. Of course, there is no guarantee that this information-sharing will alter politicians’ stand, but it might shift the debate away from the realm of politically manipulable rumour and insinuation.