Subversion from within

Several issues illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Take the curious proposal on including Udham Singh Nagar in Uttaranchal. The most significant part is the BJP8217;s promise to keep the district out of the purview of the land ceiling law. Now, the BJP8217;s motive clearly is cynical, short-term survival, but the proposal does away with the idea ofequality before the law, exempting sections which are important to the ruling party from legal provisions applicable to all others.

This, of course, is not likely to take the BJP. It has applied double standards in many instances. Spurred by its irascible allies, Mamata and Samata, its home minister L. K. Advani was quick to seek to intervene in the law and order situation in West Bengal and Bihar.

When more serious incidents occurred in Gujarat on account of the violent bigotry of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal testified to by the state8217;s Director-General of Police and even its BJP Chief Minister 8212; the wannabe Sardar Patel displayed extreme indifference. His thundering since on Gujarat was matched only by his coyness on the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition8217;s response to the Srikrishna Commission report in Maharashtra.

An even more serious assault on parliamentary democracy has been mounted by the BJP8217;s redoubtable minister for information and broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj. Her piloting of thePrasar Bharati Bill has been a disingenuous attempt to change the Westminster model that the Republic of India consciously adopted.

Having got her anti-Gill Bill fortuitously passed by the Lok Sabha, she deliberately decided to undermine Parliament8217;s bicameral nature. The Bill was not presented to the Rajya Sabha even though the House was prepared to extend its session to consider important matters. Swaraj claimed that the Bill was sent to the President before the Rajya Sabha and implied that he showed a curious lethargy in not forwarding it to the Upper House even as he quickly sent on the Bill on emoluments for MPs and others. The covert slur on the President matched her disregard for Parliament.

The twists and turns in the Prasar Bharati Bill have concealed more than they have revealed. It has been made out that the Bill is all about removing an aged S. S. Gill as Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati. That, of course, is there. The BJP, which sets great store by packing positions with its 8220;own8221;people, especially in institutions dealing with education, information and culture, is clearly uncomfortable with a person who is uniformly critical of all political formations.

However, there is much more to it. The way the BJP has played fast and loose with Parliament over the Bill shows it has no respect for a House where it cannot cobble together an opportunistic majority. As it is, the Rajya Sabha8217;s character has been irretrievably altered by almost all political parties 8212; barring the Left getting state legislatures to send members to it who have little obvious connection with the states they claim to represent.

All parties of the centre and the right the Congress, the Janata, the BJP are guilty of this subversion. But since Manmohan Singh of Assam and S. R. Bommai of Orissa, I.K. Gujral of Bihar and Pranab Mukherjee of Gujarat, Arun Shourie of Uttar Pradesh and the late Dinesh Singh of Haryana have gone along with this willing suspension of disbelief, voices raised against this practice are butcries in the wilderness.

The BJP however has gone much further. Despite everything Parliament has remained bicameral. The Rajya Sabha has exercised equal authority with the Lower House except on money bills. The founding fathers provided for this in the system of checks and balances that constitutes the practice of democracy. But the BJP8217;s cavalier attitude with regard to the Prasar Bharati Bill is a clear attack on bicameralism.

The curious part is that the proposed legislation has a very important role for MPs in supervising the Prasar Bharati Corporation. It is astounding that it should contemplate such a role when the Rajya Sabha has been by-passed in enacting the law.

The Prasar Bharati amendment has more implications than the fate of one individual. It has a bearing on parliamentary democracy itself. It speaks of this coalition8217;s disregard for established modes of legislation and governance. It is of a piece with the utter disregard of the BJP8217;s partner in power, the Shiv Sena, towards thejudicial Srikrishna Commission.

The whittling down of the statutory Inter-State Council8217;s role in ordering the nature of federalism, the attempt to 8220;restructure8221; the Planning Commission, the lethargy in appointing heads of the National Commission on Women, the Central Vigilance Commission and the Press Council and other acts are indicative of the government8217;s attempts to fundamentally alter the institutions of the state.

Many BJP leaders and their fellow travellers have even called for changing the Constitution itself despite the Supreme Courts8217; clear injunction that there should be no tinkering with its basic character.

What Sangh Parivar ideologues and the many fair-weather pragmatists who have flocked around it choose to ignore is that they do not have the mandate to play with the Constitution and the law. Their unstable majority in the Lok Sabha merely places them in power for the day. It does not allow them to become a Constituent Assembly. Even constitutional amendments require two-thirdsmajority in both Houses of Parliament and a majority of the state Assemblies. This the Sangh coalition does not have.

Nor indeed does it have a majority even in both Houses of Parliament. It is thus prevented from enacting legislation except with the cooperation of the parties out of power. The parivar bigots who talk glibly of changing laws if judicial verdicts do not suit them must have these facts of life brought home to them.