House cleaning

The final countdown to the George Bush visit was expected to be a fussy affair. After all, this was primetime for a reflexively anti-America...

The final countdown to the George Bush visit was expected to be a fussy affair. After all, this was primetime for a reflexively anti-American section of India8217;s political class and commentariat to strut its wares. It is also well-known that India8217;s Parliament is being denuded of the big ideas, the informed debates. So should the unrestrained furore in Parliament on Monday be treated as business as usual? On that day, parties across the political spectrum banded together to demand that the Manmohan Singh government summon the US envoy, and/or have him recalled. The Left parties and UPA allies like the RJD and DMK had no differences with the BJP on this one: David Mulford8217;s statement linking India8217;s Iran vote with the Indo-US nuclear deal and his letter to the West Bengal CM had intolerably jeopardised India8217;s 8216;8216;self respect8217;8217;.

Monday8217;s contrived tempest in Parliament must provoke alarm. In this moment, India must make consequential decisions vis a vis the nuclear pact Manmohan Singh signed with George Bush last year as well as spell out its position on Iran8217;s dangerous nuclear brinkmanship. Both issues call for the hammering out of a bipartisan understanding of where India8217;s national interest lies. Failing that, they require the Opposition of the day to ask intelligent and searching questions and the UPA government to explain and defend its position in Parliament. What we have, instead, is puerile name-calling and walk-outs. And in-your-face hypocrisy. All those who are heavily stomping about on account of the American envoy8217;s apparent indiscretions now were remarkably tonguetied just last year when the Chinese consul general publicly talked down to India8217;s defence minister in a Mumbai seminar for referring to the Chinese invasion in 1962, and then received public support from his ambassador in New Delhi.

Mulford8217;s comments are not the real issue. It is the unwillingness or the inability of the political class to engage seriously with India8217;s choices on the world stage. By refusing to do so with restraint and dignity, and by flaunting an embarrassingly thin skin, India8217;s MPs do disservice to a nation the world looks at with increasing respect.