Last Friday in Parliament and outside it, there was proof how Indian politics can rise above itself. The BJP supported the Congress to argue against the Left that the Iran/nuclear proliferation issue did not call for parliamentary brinkmanship. The Left (A.B. Bardhan) and the BJP (Murli Manohar Joshi), as well as George Fernandes, got together outside the House to protest the Congress-led government’s plans to open the retail sector to FDI. The merits and demerits of the specific arguments are not so important here. This newspaper has argued for India joining the global effort to monitor Iran and, as an instinctive economic liberal, has advocated opening up the retail sector. But that Bardhan, Joshi and Fernandes shared a forum to oppose what we support delighted us even more than the BJP and Congress reading from roughly the same page as we do on Iran.This is exactly the kind of cross-party dialogue and understanding that politics needs. This is exactly what has been missing for long — the bitter feuds before and after Election 2004, Gujarat’s scars on the body politic, the long running, intense mutual antipathy between the BJP and the Left. It is no one’s case that political parties mustn’t have sharp differences. Were it not for such product differentiation, the political market place would have offered poorer choices to consumers — that is, voters. But voters have a right to expect that political competition doesn’t exclude issue-based cooperation. So, the general lesson from the handshake, not to mention the smiles, as Left-of-Left Bardhan met Right-of-Right Joshi, is to remind ourselves that politics is the art of the possible. Ex-communication is contra-indicated.Can we hope this Parliament session sees more of this? There are crucial policy bills pending. Just as BJP plus Congress passed the insurance bill during the NDA’s tenure, just as Congress plus Left pushed through the patents bill earlier in the UPA’s term, the pension bill, to take one example, can clear Parliament this session if the BJP backs the Congress.
