Missing consensus

The Prime Minister was right to point out while speaking at the 30th anniversary celebrations of Business Standard last week, that although India has a system of competitive politics, on key economic issues there has usually been an implicit consensus cutting across party lines.

From the days of the Narasimha Rao government through till the Vajpayee government, crucial policy decisions and legislation went through only because the Opposition of the time played a constructive role and chose to treat these issues as being above the demands of adversarial politics.

In a virtually unbroken period from the start of the reform programme in 1991, the ruling party or coalition at the Centre has not enjoyed a majority in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and has therefore been forced to rely on support from non-treasury benches. The entire reform programme, therefore, has been driven by a national consensus on the key issues, either explicitly or implicitly.

Dr Manmohan Singh chose to emphasise this point in his remarks because this consensus has suddenly broken down, as is evident from the decision by the BJP-ruled states to pull out of the agreement on introducing a state value-added tax system from April 1.

It is no one's case that introducing VAT is a partisan issue with sharp differences of opinion; the preparation for launch next month began years ago, with prodding from BJP finance ministers in New Delhi. Nor can it be argued that VAT is a hot election issue which a party can milk when it becomes election time.

The only opposition to the introduction of the state VAT has come from sections of the trading community, traditionally BJP voters. But enough and more concessions have been made on this account, so that would hardly have been the tipping point.

The BJP's own leaders have been embarrassed by this denouement. Some have argued that if the controversies over government formation in Goa and Jharkhand had not occurred, the BJP would have played ball. But this is precisely the point that the Prime Minister was making: some issues should be kept outside the purview of competitive politics.

The BJP had already registered its protest when speakers from state legislatures that have a BJP majority stayed away from a meeting called by the Lok Sabha Speaker (which, incidentally, raises questions about whether speakers are indeed setting aside their party loyalties when they take office).

So there was no particular need to make the point all over again. And indeed, the BJP need not have staged a walk-out over the revised Bill on patents when there had been consultations with the party on all the issues.

Arun Shourie used to argue that every political party should resolve to not oppose in one house what it was proposing to do in another. By that maxim, the Left should not be opposing at the Centre what its government is doing in Kerala (strategic sale of public sector enterprises being a case in point).

And a parallel maxim should be that if you endorsed a particular proposal when in office, don't oppose it because you now happen to be in the opposition. These broad guidelines for legislative conduct would show that the national consensus on reform is much broader and deeper than competitive politics allows to be demonstrated.