Annaji’s fast petered out with the announcement of a new political party and Babaji’s bring-back-black-money-stashed-abroad call was not heard by anyone significant in government. Consequently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken it upon itself to keep the anti-corruption embers glowing. However, its strategy seems to suggest that it is not going to wait till 2014, or when it is time for the next Lok Sabha elections, for the embers to burst into flames. Instead, it wants a change of government right away, and the way to bring that about, it feels, is to get rid of the current prime minister. Indeed, that is exactly what one of its leaders has been seen, and heard, saying on television: they want a new prime minister.
During the Arab spring and summer, there were many in India who referred to the possibility of similar movements in India, especially when Anna Hazare was threatening to go on a “fast-till-death or till the Lok Pal Bill”, whichever was earlier. While the Arab summer was directed against non-democratic governments and to usher in more democratic ways of functioning, the Indian summer, and now the monsoon session in Parliament, seems to emphasise the irrelevance of all democratic institutions to solve the problems we are facing. Two things should be noted here. First, the BJP, like Messrs Hazare and Ramdev before them, seems to believe that the corruption battle cannot be won in Parliament. Second, and again like Messrs Hazare and Ramdev, the BJP is looking for a bunch of incorruptible Indians to take over the mantle of ruling the country in a way that will free us of corruption. They believe such people should be chosen by experts like themselves. Both these points are interesting because somewhere, somehow, there seems to be a total loss of faith among these stalwarts in the parliamentary democracy India has always been proud of.
There are specific methods to get rid of the prime minister in our parliamentary system; rushing to the well of the House, staging walkouts or shouting down everyone trying to speak are, unfortunately, not counted among those. One BJP leader complained that parliamentary debates are nothing more than farces, suggesting that that is why the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) wants one on Coalgate. As a citizen depending on our leaders, believing that Parliament will solve our nation’s problems through debates and discussions, the realisation that Parliament is a farce has come as a big shock to me. Indeed, given our deep sense of camaraderie and brotherhood for the participants in the Arab summer, it is our duty to rush there and inform them about the big lie the parliamentary system will turn out to be, if one were to take Mr Hazare, Mr Ramdev and the BJP seriously.
Regardless of whether the prime minister was culpable in Coalgate, can one block Parliament’s proceedings? What is the worst thing that could happen if a debate was held as offered by the UPA? Many watch Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV; Indian news channels bring together talking heads in their evening programmes; influential thought leaders and political analysts write columns and op-eds in local and national newspapers. If a farce is enacted in Parliament, I guess we would know. More importantly, if it indeed is a farce then – regardless of whether or not we enjoy it – we will keep it in mind during the 2014 elections. And, after all, in a democracy that is all the BJP can hope for. The Opposition’s role in Parliament is not to force the government to take decisions that the Opposition wants; instead, its job is to warn the government and the people of the bad consequences of government action so that people remember them during the next elections. If the BJP asks relevant questions on Coalgate and the UPA fails to answer them, we will be able to appreciate that. If, instead, the BJP screams and shouts that the prime minister is too corrupt to govern and, hence, refuses to talk about it in Parliament, I am not so sure we will be convinced that the BJP is right and the UPA is wrong.
What is happening in all this is that we are missing, perhaps, the most important point. We have to seriously think about how we distribute wealth and assets in India. Things like natural resources and land cannot be distributed by bureaucrats, politicians or experts. Instead, we have to depend on citizens and other entities bidding for these assets or through an auction. I am often very amused at some of the criticisms that one reads in India against auctions. Most such pieces refer to failed auctions in India and abroad without (a) mentioning auctions that have succeeded or (b) analysing the causes of failures and successes. Auctions are not a given unique process; they differ widely according to the context. Context would cover the nature of the resource, the market structure among potential bidders, the state’s objective in the auction and so on. Referring to cases of failed auctions is like referring to the injuries of Virendra Sehwag as an argument against playing cricket!
Now is a good time to ask the following questions. Why is it that whenever the government distributes resources, scams happen? How should governments distribute assets so that scams do not happen? Why do we not develop a process that is transparent and not decided by a group of experts that invariably includes current or retired administrators? Observe that who should be the next prime minister is not the burning question of the hour. That is a decision the people will help take in 2014 — and, believe it or not, they are hard at work thinking about it. The BJP’s refusal to a debate in Parliament, of course, makes it easier to think.
The writer is research director at IDF and director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, SNU