Lost in antagonism

We may never be able to arrive at the true picture of what happened inside the prime minister8217;s chambers in Parliament at 12:45 pm on Wednesday. But we may no longer need to. The overblown reactions by the Opposition and the flurry of soundbites from government ministers and spokespersons in return have already left that particular scene very far behind. A hapless nation is now invited to picture this: its senior leaders, respected and experienced, seem barely able to remain on speaking terms with each other. Government and Opposition take turns to be sulky and confrontational in the crucial budget session. The Finance Bill is passed in Lok Sabha amid an Opposition boycott. This caps a parliamentary session that has achieved the distinction of being one in which even the bare courtesies could not be salvaged from the raging antagonisms. The prime minister wasn8217;t allowed to introduce his council of ministers, nor speak on the president8217;s address.

How did we arrive at this public bitterness, such unbridled petulance? Why are leaders of the stature of L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh, on the one side, and Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, on the other, quarrelling over whether a PM otherwise known, even chastised, for his mildness, 8216;8216;threw down8217;8217; a note on the table or firmly put it down? For an explanation, it helps to look beyond the incident on Wednesday. Ever since the UPA government took charge, the BJP-led NDA has acted like the child who has been denied a favourite toy and will not let anyone else enjoy it either. And the UPA has actively courted the BJP8217;s bad behaviour. Be it HRD minister Arjun Singh8217;s reckless rush to cross swords with the Opposition, or Karnataka8217;s Congress government8217;s decision to exhume a longago case against Uma Bharti or indeed the completely unnecessary and mostly ill-informed point-scoring flagged off all over again by Mani Shankar Aiyar on Veer Savarkar, the government has shown little of the maturity required to deal with an Opposition that was already spoiling for a fight.

In every democracy, what preserves the health of individual institutions is something far more general. It is a settled acceptance of the rules of the game. It is the scrupulous adherence by both government and Opposition to these unwritten rules that keeps the system going. The present breakdown speaks of the weakening of a fundamental commitment. The nation worries about this. Seniors and statesmen on both sides should hurry up and make peace. If for no other reason but that the present truculence does not behove them.