Opinion High Noon

Imagine a clear pool of water. Someone adds a virus which pollutes just about one per cent of the pool.

August 28, 2011 01:32 AM IST First published on: Aug 28, 2011 at 01:32 AM IST

Imagine a clear pool of water. Someone adds a virus which pollutes just about one per cent of the pool. But it doubles every day. As you can calculate for yourself,the community has only seven days in which to act to clean it up. By the eighth day,the pool is wholly polluted.

Something of this sort seems to be happening to Indian politics. The political system,by which I mean all the political parties in Parliament,have allowed the corruption virus to eat at the heart of Indian democracy. No one seems to regard its tackling as urgent. Instead the parliamentary system is much more eager to ward off well-wishers who want to help it. The day-by-day saga of Anna Hazare versus the UPA would be funny if it was not tragic.

Since last April,the Congress party has taken upon itself to fight Anna Hazare. At first,they treated him with contempt and called his fast undemocratic. Then they wooed him and started bilateral discussions with Team Anna. The Congress thought that was it and went on for the next three months to ignore Anna Hazare and the Bill. Come August and with Anna Hazare telling the Congress that he had not been fooled by its manoeuvres,another process began. On August 14,we had the abuse of Anna Hazare. Then by 16th,we had the arrest and the pretence that it was Delhi Police and not the Congress which was behind this. The façade collapsed by evening and we had the release of Anna Hazare. Either the arrest was politically directed from the top or the release or perhaps both.

When Anna refused to budge out of Tihar,the Congress lost any legitimacy it has had so far in the battle. It has certainly lost its franchise over Brand Mahatma Gandhi. People see the Congress as an enemy of Gandhian modes of protest. We have then had further eight days of dithering and various backdoor deals. Aruna Roy has been introduced as an in-house Trojan Horse which surely is worse than what she deserves. But that is what you get if you sup with power.

The constant shifting of strategy shows that in the absence of Sonia Gandhi,the Congress is clueless. All the clever lawyers and parliamentary proceduralists in the Congress do not show an ounce of political commonsense. Of course,we are not to be told what is the matter with Sonia Gandhi nor how long she is likely to be absent from active politics. She did appoint the Gang of Four to look after the Congresss affairs,but we still do not know if she also designated a second in command for her role as the Leader of the Coalition. No wonder the UPA has stayed out of the battle and let the Congress collect all the opprobrium.

The entire political system has treated the parliamentary system with contempt all these years. Parliament meets fewer days each year,and when it does meet,works fewer hours. The executive,whether the UPA or the NDA,likes it that way because then the Government can get seventeen Bills passed in ten minutes as it happened last year. Parliament and its procedure are now being displayed as a sign of why nothing can be done with any urgency by the elected representatives. It is as if the Parliaments lack of urgency is a virtue.

Also,you only have to see how the executive behaves towards Parliament when it suits it. Thus,last December much was made of the PMs concession that he would appear before the PAC. This was supposed to ward off Oppositions demands for a JPC. But when the PAC reported,the Congress tried its best to have it trashed because Murli Manohar Joshi had criticised the PM. So the sacred parliamentary institutions can be made unholy at the whim of the party in power.

It used to be said that Margaret Thatcher was the only Man in the Cabinet. After the tergiversations of the last few days,one can only conclude that the only Man in the UPA is sadly absent,recovering from some complications we are never to be told. But then Indians are used to never being told the truth by their rulers.