The clinching vote

In choosing to stay the course and not resign as Speaker of Lok Sabha as demanded by his party...

In choosing to stay the course and not resign as Speaker of Lok Sabha as demanded by his party, Somnath Chatterjee may either be emulating the statesmanlike perspective of Edmund Burke or pursuing a deep dialectical plot, being drummed up by the satta bazaar as aimed at securing a gubernatorial position in the near future. Which is it?

In a famous speech delivered in 1774 at the city8217;s Guildhall, Burke defined an MP8217;s duty to his constituency. To the people of Bristol that elected him, he made clear that as an MP he would no doubt remain loyal and faithful to them, but he would not sacrifice his reason and conscience for the good of the whole nation at the altar of local purposes or prejudices. He said: 8220;government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment and not of inclination and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion?8221; Transposing the same logic to the relationship between party interests and that of the whole House he presides over, our Speaker has decided to stay put for the moment.

The focus of the media on 8216;man-to-man8217; marking and horse-trading blots out the significance of the unfolding events. Nuclear power for environmentally sustainable economic growth is a dire need but are we today, as many say, accepting a strategic alliance with the US that would compromise our military nuclear capability, worsen our relations with neighbours and sheikhdoms that supply us oil, and require our jawans to be deployed where American soldiers fear to tread?

Put thus, the obvious choice would be to oppose the 123 Agreement. But alternative scenarios are bleaker still. Alliances within our region are impossible. China is an economic and military rival. We cannot handle the growing terrorist threat from Afghanistan on our own because that means independently fencing with China, Iran and US. Regional stalemate has only led to the resurgence of the Taliban. And if there is stagnation in our economy due to power constraints, we would be weaker by the day. Being on the right side of the US in their dealings with oil-supplying Middle East countries to contain oil prices is probably the best bet.

It8217;s certainly not an easy choice that the nation is faced with and requires deliberation and debate. The Speaker has done well to stick to his responsibility of ensuring this happens. Indeed, it would be ironic if he were to desert his post precisely when the interests of the nation require him to conduct its business. The General Secretary of CPM might like to recall what Karl Marx pointed out in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte about the folly typical of a middle class group called the Montagnards. By not recognising the difference between the rules of the game on the streets and the rules of a parliamentary assembly, and by behaving in a parliamentary manner on the streets and street-like in the Assembly, the Montagnards ended up as an object of ridicule. By asking the Speaker to resign, the CPM has betrayed similar immaturity.

A mean-spirited rumour suggests that since the Speaker is not bound to follow the party whip, he might choose to stand by the PM to earn himself an office of profit, say as governor of a state, thereafter. This, the insidious language of speculative markets, carries no credibility since the Speaker8217;s stature among parliamentarians indicates he has always acted 8216;in general honest thought and common good to all8217;.

Alternatively, is there a chance that, having ushered in deliberation and debate, the Speaker intends to then resign his post, thus showing his loyalty to his party by voting in accordance with the party whip. However, why should a resignation be necessary when as Speaker too he is free to vote against the government?

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Or is he? In case either the opposition or government was to win by more than one vote, his vote either way would be inconsequential. If the opposition were to get one vote less than the government, his vote would again be inconsequential since even if his vote equalized the two sides, the government would be obliged to resign. His vote matters only in the eventuality of a tie. The casting vote is the vote that decides an issue only when two sides have exactly the same number of votes. In some legislatures like the Senate in US, the Vice President may exercise his casting vote according to his party affiliation or his own personal beliefs. In UK, however, the convention is that the Speaker8217;s casting vote is meant to be exercised in order that the House gets another chance to discuss the subject before any final decision is taken. In the present crisis of confidence in India, therefore, the casting vote must be exercised by the Speaker in favour of the status quo because otherwise, the House would fall and not have any second chance to discuss the issue of the 123 Agreement. In case of a tie, the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, is likely to follow this convention and vote for trust in the present government. By doing so, he would have revivified the yawning difference between a Stalinist 8216;democracy8217; and a parliamentary one.

The writer is a member of the Indian Audit 038; Accounts Service