january 29, 2011

Parliament Paralysed
With Parliament not allowed to work, it is time popular forces come to the fore.

ur Parliament at work may appear disappointing. But Parliament not allowed to work is disgraceful. However dull and ineffectual the debates on the floors of the two houses might have been in the past, they at least brought some semblance of democratic functioning to the institution. It lost even that pretence when from 9 November to 13 December last year both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha lay paralysed, as their presiding officers had to adjourn them from day to day for 23 sittings. This was due to the stand-off between an obstinate ruling coalition and an equally uncompromising opposition, over the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to go into the 2G scam. Barring the passing of a few bills (and that also without any debate), during the one and a half month long session, the Lok Sabha worked for seven hours, and the Rajya Sabha for two hours only. The fiscal loss to the public exchequer was a hefty Rs 172 crore. The waste of the taxpayers money on a vulgar display of filibustering, through obstruction of proceedings by legislators, should alert our citizens to the need for a rigorous mechanism that can hold them accountable for their misdemeanour and penalise them accordingly. Striking workers, who are denied their wages for the period of their absence from work, have every reason to expect their representatives in Parliament to forgo their salaries during the period when they refuse to participate in parliamentary proceedings. Unlike the members of our Parliament, who even enjoy immunity from prosecution for accepting bribes, their counterparts in England (from where India derives its Parliamentary rules and practices) have to pay the price for impropriety, as obvious from the recent suspension of some prominent legislators, including the India-born business tycoon and member of the House of Lords, Swraj Paul. They were accused of submitting false travel expenses from their houses outside London (where they hardly stay) to come to attend parliament sessions, and further claiming overnight allowances for taking up residence in London during that period (even though they have been staying all the time at their permanent houses in the capital). To be fair to Swraj Paul, he returned the 38,000 pounds that he wrongly claimed. Will our Members of Parliament (MPs) follow his example and recompensate the public exchequer for the losses that their behaviour had cost? Coming to the crux of the matter, one can go on arguing about the ability of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) or a JPC to inquire
Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 29, 2011 vol xlvI no 5

into the 2G scam. But while this could be a part of an academic discourse, it has been turned into a tool to hijack parliamentary proceedings and bring them to a standstill. The ruling Congressled United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the opposition cling to their respective stands the former favouring the PAC, and the latter the JPC. Yet, both are fully aware that such committees had been in effective in the past due to the bureaucratic rules that obstruct their democratic functioning at every step. While the irresponsible members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (into whose company the left is also being dragged) hope to get a lot of political mileage from this running warfare on the floors of the Lok Sabha, a shaky UPA government is contributing to its own delegiti misation by not only adopting a confrontationist stand against the opposition, but also alienating its own constituency. Kapil Sibals outbursts against the Comptroller and Auditor Generals report, followed by his retraction a few days later and the governments stubborn defence of its newly appointed Central Vigilance Commissioner, who is under a cloud, are instances which are bad enough. Such glaring misdeeds are compounded by the UPA governments reneging on the promises that it made to its constituency of the poor. Its failure to control hoarders and prevent the rise in foodgrains prices should have been the main issue of debate on the floors of Parliament. Both the ruling coalition and the opposition however agree on the need to pass the coming budget, driven by the compulsion of administering the economy and maintaining the system. They may veer around to some face-saving device to break the impasse (like the governments agreeing to arm the PAC with some powers of the JPC, as suggested recently by a former secretary general of the Lok Sabha). Whatever might be the outcome of the negotiations between the contending parties on the future of the impending budget session, for the vast majority of our population, Parliament is ceasing to offer a meaningful avenue for participation in directing the affairs of the nation. Self-seeking politicians will continue to be the beneficiaries of elections and the rules of the parliamentary game will remain heavily tilted against democratic movements and public concerns, as evident from the passing of draconian laws without any opposition, or of supplementary demands and appropriation bills for finances without any debate, or the shameless unanimity in agreeing to hike the salaries of MPs. Walt Whitman dreamt of a country where the populace rise at once against the never-ending

EDITORIALS

audacity of elected persons. India may fit the bill today. There is a need for widening the democratic space outside Parliament within which popular organisations and movements can survive and develop enough powers to curb the audacity of their elected

representatives. By building mass movements from below, the popular forces can make inroads into the administration of state power, and reinvigorate the institution of Parliament and restore it to its status as their true representative.

The Staines Verdict

Why the deep prejudice against Christians availing of the freedom granted by Article 25 of the Constitution?

n 21 January, the Supreme Court (SC) upheld the life sentence of Dara Singh, the main accused in the burning to death of the Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons on the night of 22 January 1999 in Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district of Orissa. The SC commented on the intention of the crime thus: the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity. However, days later, on 25 January, the Court expunged its own comments on conversions. Staines had been working with leprosy patients in Keonjhar for nearly 34 years. While the brutal killing evoked reactions of shock and horror, the Hindutva forces had a pat explanation: the murders were a result of the tribals anger against the forcible conversions made by Staines. What was not explained was why this anger against Staines had not manifested itself for three decades until Hindutva outfits began their virulent anti-Christian propaganda in the region and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power at the centre. Dara Singhs conviction notwithstanding, the impression assiduously cultivated by the Sangh Parivar that his anti-Muslim and anti-Christian activities were not backed by any of its affiliates, stands. So does the view that popular anger against forcible conversions by Christian missionaries like Staines are responsible for attacks on the minority community. The Supreme Courts statement quoted above has only added to this impression. The violence against Christian tribals in the Dang district of Gujarat in 1998, which continued unhindered for more than a fortnight, was also blamed by Hindutva leaders on the peoples anger against forcible conversions. There too, following a pattern, the area had become the target of a sustained hate campaign and deliberate provocation against Christians with official help for quite some time before the attacks began. In Orissa too, the anti-Christian riots in Kandhamal district in 2008, which led to 38 deaths and destruction of nearly 50,000 homes, were not a flash in the pan. The ghar vaapsi programmes

(converting Christian tribals to Hinduism) conducted by the Sangh Parivar outfits along with the continuing anti-Christian propaganda had raised tension to straining point. Predictably, the district admini stration, under the then BJP-Biju Janata Dal state government, turned a blind eye to the danger signals. The Maoists claimed responsibility for Swami LaxmananandaSaraswatis killing but the Vishwa Hindu Parishad targeted Christians and its leader Pravin Togadia took out a procession with the swamis body through the sensitive areas unhindered by the district administration. Thousands of Christians had fled their homes, living in government relief camps for well over a year. Despite these now being closed, there are reports that the Christian tribals still live in fear and insecurity. Starting from the 1980s, Hindutva forces, emboldened by the BJPs rise to power, began floating outfits like the Hindu Jagran Manch (responsible for the Dang attacks) and the Bajrang Dal with which Dara Singh was linked. In 1999, a Roman Catholic priest, Arul Doss was killed by a mob at Jamabani in Mayurbhanj district, while a Muslim trader, Sheikh Rehman, was killed in the same district on 26 August. The D P Wadhwa Commissions (set up by the BJP government) report did not take into account the wider context of the steady creation of an anti-minority atmosphere or even the official complicity. It blamed the Staines murders on Dara Singh alone and the people he managed to incite, discounting the involvement of any organisation in the murder despite the evidence presented to it. The tribals have as much right as any other Indian citizen to avail of the freedom granted by Article 25 of the Constitution. That is, to propagate ones religion and to practise the religion of ones choice. There is no evidence on record that Staines indulged in forcible conversions, but the SC bench, with its comments on conversions, later expunged, showed its deep prejudice against Christians availing of the freedom granted by Article 25. The crime was the fruit of sustained and ongoing hate and false propaganda campaigns unleashed by affiliates of the Sangh Parivar and which continue to this day.

Taseers Omen
Salman Taseers assassination shows how entrenched the religious right has become in Pakistans polity.

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he recent assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistans Punjab province and one of the leading members of its ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, has focused much attention on the dangerous political and security conditions in

that country. Not only was Taseer killed by one of his own guards, Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, but the assassin appears to have had the tacit support of all the other guards in the security detail who were in the know of this assassination plan and did nothing to
january 29, 2011 vol xlvI no 5 EPW Economic & Political Weekly