Talking terms

Some large-hearted moves are in order. The opposition’s decision not to return to Parliament has cast the onus on the government. It must reach out and grasp the openings that the NDA has been careful to insert into its show of intransigence: it has indicated that it may not be holding out for Laloo Prasad Yadav’s resignation from the council of ministers, after all, and is willing to be persuaded to come back to the House if the government changes its “attitude”. It has also promised to review its boycott daily. The ball is in the Manmohan Singh government’s court now to demonstrate the generosity and the maturity that is required to break the silence that threatens to settle down between government and opposition.

Parliament is not the institution where any government can afford to be at home alone. It is the forum where it must mostly balance on its toes, constantly interrogated by the opposition whose responsibility it is to enforce accountability for executive decisions and policies apart from participating in law-making. For the health of parliamentary democracy, it is vital that the opposition participates and opposes and offends on the floor of the House and is confident that the institution and its processes protect the room and the atmosphere in which it can do so. This confidence has clearly been shaken in recent days. If there is one thing that leaps out from the BJP-led NDA’s refusal to talk, it is a sense of injury at not being allowed to say its piece in Parliament. The UPA can ignore the NDA’s allegations of the government’s “vindictive and hostile” attitude towards it only at its own, and eventually the nation’s, peril. This warning must especially be heeded by those in parties of the Left and on the treasury benches, like the RJD, who are not always mindful of the need — no, the necessity — to keep the conversation going with the opposition for the sake of a larger and shared public interest.

A special responsibility devolves on the speaker. Somnath Chatterjee is fast acquiring a reputation for being an enthusiastic and sometimes stern custodian of parliamentary privileges. He must surely be worried by the continuing impasse in the House on his watch. Chatterjee has already appealed to the NDA convenor to rethink the boycott of Parliament. It’s time for the veteran parliamentarian to proffer a more irresistible invitation.