Joint People’s Committee

Parliament, today’s news reports say, was rocked by the BJP’s demand for a JPC on the nuclear deal. Actually this Parliament is rocked by something more substantial — the demand that it gives way to the next Parliament. Controversies in and around the House no longer permit any real solution. The JPC fracas makes it clear again. In normal course the BJP’s demand would be easy to refute. Let us assume the party’s objections to the nuclear deal are all legitimate. But asking for a JPC on it implies something not legitimate: that the institution in question, the government in this case, has wilfully done something that can be objectively identified as misconduct. This is the typical context in which JPCs are set up. But even severe critics of the nuclear deal will have to admit their criticism comes down to different interpretations. Those arguing that the prime minister has sacrificed some aspect of sovereignty, like giving up the right to conduct nuclear tests, base their claim on their reading of the 123 agreement and/or the Hyde Act. Others, including this newspaper, read the same things differently. The government cannot be objectively accused of wilful misconduct. The nuclear deal, to take an example that will make the Congress squirm but support its current argument, is not Bofors. Ergo, the demand for a JPC is logically untenable.

So far so simple. But here’s the complication. The no-JPC argument is considerably compromised by the existence of the Congress-Left committee on the nuclear deal. Never mind Congress spin, the fact is that the unprecedented act of setting up a political committee to review the executive’s foreign policy/strategic decision has changed the rules of the game. Which is of course why Pranab Mukherjee, while adamant on not setting up a JPC, offered the BJP another committee. Why couldn’t the BJP accept that committee? Because nuclear deal politics has corroded what little inter-party goodwill was there in this Parliament. The BJP’s relations with the Congress are terrible. Anything short of grandstanding on the part of the BJP would imply a craven climbdown. Both parties are responsible for this. And the Left, which prides itself on exclusionary political dealings, is the most guilty.

This Parliament is hostage to dysfunctionality in government and in government-Opposition relations. There is only one committee that can solve this. A joint people’s committee, aka, general elections, that will create a new Parliament.