Parallax View: Why India will never go the Egypt way

Anyone who sees images of street protests in Cairo and Alexandria will ask him or herself the obvious

question: how did it come to this? How did Egypt, long considered one of the most stable nations in the Middle East, descend into this sort of

chaos?

 

   This column is not about Egypt and nor am I an expert on the region so I won’t offer too many explanations. But one thing seems clear. When dictators or monarchs (and let’s not kid ourselves, no matter what he called himself, Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who ruthlessly stifled dissent) get into trouble, the anger of their subjects almost always takes the form of street protest, violent revolts or even revolutions. This is what happened in the Shah’s Iran. And this is what is happening in Egypt today.

 

   One reason why it is unlikely to ever happen in India is because we have a strong opposition. Whenever there is anger or dissatisfaction against the government in power, this rage or resentment is channeled through the opposition. Dissent is not stifled. The media are free. And so, there is a safety valve that allows for expressions of public anger.

 

   When governments are weak (as this one is, with no overall majority for one party and troublesome allies) and the media are strong (as the Indian media are), the anger can be expressed day after day. But even when governments are strong and the media are weak, our democracy still offers outlets for the people’s anger. For instance, in 1987, Rajiv Gandhi had a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha, there were no private TV channels and most newspapers were mild and apologetic. Even then, anger over corruption scandals were expressed so forcefully that eventually, Rajiv lost the election.

 

   In countries like today’s Egypt and the Shah’s Iran, the absence of an opposition or of any meaningful democracy means that all anger remains bottled up till it explodes on the street. Worse still, because no effective opposition has been allowed to develop, the toppling of a regime leads to the fear that religious leaders (who have their own organized structure) will fill the vacuum and take power.

 

   This makes the relationship between the government and the opposition crucial to the functioning of any liberal democracy. In the US, for instance, the Democrats and the Republicans may be political rivals but the system is such that it cannot function if they do not learn how to cooperate. In the UK, the leader of the opposition is given the right to nominate people on the honours list (sort of like our Republic Day honours) and to send loyalists to the House of Lords.

 

   In India, however, the relationship between the government and the opposition follows no consistent pattern. Of course, the opposition must attack the government. And of course the government must do the job it has been elected to do. But both sides must respect institutions.

 

   And sadly, that does not always happen.

 

   Let’s take two recent instance, both of which are in the news. The first relates to the appointment of PJ Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC).

 

   The job of the CVC is above narrow party political considerations because it involves keeping a watch on corruption. Accordingly, the appointment is made by a three-member panel consisting of the PM, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The idea is to ensure a bi-partisan appointment so that nobody can accuse the CVC of bias later.

 

   The Thomas appointment has become the centre of a controversy because he was once accused of involvement in a Palmolein scam. Critics allege that this suggests, prime facie, some involvement in corruption. And a CVC should have a spotless record. In his defence, Thomas says the charges are over a decade old, relate to his time in the Kerala government and that the then CVC ruled there were no merit in them. Further, these charges were known to those who empanelled him for promotion to Secretary (he was a Secretary before he became CVC) and that the panel decided to promote him anyway because there was nothing in the case.

 

   The matter has now been sidetracked into a separate debate about whether these charges were mentioned in the bio-data submitted to the panel that made him CVC. The government has washed its hands off Thomas and has urged him to resign. (It has no power to sack him; he must be impeached by Parliament.)

 

"Democracy works because both sides ---- the government and the opposition ---- realize that they must play by the rules. Break those rules and we will head the way of the rest of the Third World."

   Thomas has taken the line that for him to resign now would be to admit to a guilt he does not feel. If politicians are so convinced that he is a crook, then they are welcome to impeach him. (For which, of course, there is no real case.)

 

   The only person who emerges from this sorry saga with any credit is Sushma Swaraj. When Thomas’s appointment was discussed, Sushma objected, mentioning the Palmolein case. She has stuck to that stand ever since.

 

   The government noted her objections but decided to appoint Thomas anyway because it had a majority on the committee (two against one). Later, when things got too hot, it tried to ease out the man it had appointed over her objection.

 

   I do not know the facts of the Palmolein case but I am inclined to believe Thomas when he says that there is nothing to the charges. (It has been over a decade now; the man can’t keep being haunted by unproven allegations.) Even so, I think the government erred seriously by making him the CVC.

 

   The point of including the Leader of the Opposition on the panel is to allow for a consensus that prevents the appointment from being tarred by party political considerations. If the Leader of the Opposition has strong objections to a candidate, then he should be eliminated in the interests of consensus. There are plenty of other people who can do the job. If you go by majority rulings then the government will win every time. So why bother to include the Opposition in the panel?

 

   If a democratic institution like the CVC is to function fairly, then no government can afford to ignore the objections of the Opposition. By doing so, not only has this government landed itself in a mess, dragged poor Thomas into a needless controversy at the end of his career, and annoyed the Courts but it has also devalued a democratic institution.

 

   A second instance shows the Opposition in a poor light. There may or may not be a case for a JPC into the telecom scam. The government spent all of the last session denying that a JPC was required but now seems to be having second thoughts. The rethinking is not prompted by any re-assessment of the value of a JPC but by fears that the BJP might disrupt the next session of Parliament as well. No business could be transacted in the last session because the BJP would not let Parliament function and the government is scared that its legislative agenda could be undermined by more disruption.

 

   Here, I think that the BJP is wrong. You may choose to disbelieve the government’s case. Perhaps the CBI is not functioning fairly (even though the investigation is being monitored by the Supreme Court). Perhaps the Shivraj Patil committee (which has found A Raja guilty of lapses) did not go far enough. Perhaps the PAC (headed by a BJP leader) does not have enough authority to conduct a proper investigation. Perhaps the way ahead for India is to watch while a committee of 25 politicians (most of them drawn from the ruling coalition) collects testimony from various people.

 

   But even if this is so, it can never be right to disrupt two sessions of Parliament on this one issue. Parliamentary disruptions must be resorted to only in the most extreme cases ---- denial of democratic rights, atrocities etc. It does not strike me that the appointment of a JPC constitutes such a provocation or that it is worth disrupting two sessions over.

 

   Democracy functions because of institutions. Destroy those institutions and we’ll end up like Egypt. Democracy works because both sides ---- the government and the opposition ---- realize that they must play by the rules. Break those rules and we will head the way of the rest of the Third World.