The UPA has won a reprieve, by a significant margin. But today’s proceedings have confirmed our worst fears. Parliamentary democracy is in deep disarray. Bags of money have become more than a shadowy presence in our politics. The truth of the charges that have been levelled by three BJP MPs will be sorted out in due course. But what has already been established, beyond doubt, is that the bags of money have become not just a metaphor for the character of our politics, they have become its means and its essence. It would be prudent not to prejudge the allegations. But it has to be said that either way this episode reflects abominable depths in our politics. If true, the charges are serious enough; if false and stage-managed, they represent a heinous attempt to subvert democracy. Either way, we have a politics without scruples, without principles, without common decency and without common prudence.
Defenders of Indian democracy will hearken back to history. What is new about this? We survived the JMM. We shall survive this too. If only we had punished the powerful in the JMM, this would not have happened. But that is simply restating the problem. Look at the brighter side: at least the scoundrels are now trapping each other. Perhaps this will lead to a new dawn. But this polity has long deluded itself on this vain hope. In fact, quite the opposite is likely to happen. Democracy functions not simply by forms of adversarial contestation. It functions through conventions of social interchange and minimal networks of trust. As Orwell wrote in another context, “The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays there corruption cannot go beyond a certain point.” But with this episode, the swords are out of the scabbard: corruption of one form or the other has crossed certain limits, and no relations of trust between parties, or between parties and the people, will be possible for some time to come. One way or the other MPs will now resort to any trick possible, and the politics of revenge and conspiracy will overshadow any credible political discourse. We too easily forget that we paid a heavy price for the last JMM episode. The moral vacuum created by that episode haunted Indian politics for a long time. But at that point you still had figures who could act, if not as exemplars of moral probity, at least as agents of a credible reconciliation. Now that moral vacuum will be matched by a leadership vacuum of unprecedented propositions.
... contd.
