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— Pranjit Saikia
The Manmohan Singh government is through. For the Congress and its allies, it is time to celebrate. But to ensure this celebration, for the last one month, they hooked on all sorts of wrong-doings, from worst kind of horse-trading to naked opportunistic politics, from breach of public commitment made by the Prime Minister to get criminal MPs out of jail. With their clear conscience, they just put the glorious history of Indian parliamentary democracy at stake. Every political system is based on certain norms and values. But in India, for the last one month or so, the debate on the nuclear deal had crossed all limits of parliamentary norms and value. In a parliamentary democracy the Prime Minister is the Head of the Government, whose integrity and accountability towards people does matter for a vibrant democracy. But since the very day of the issue of nuclear deal was surfaced, our “incorruptible” Prime Minister Dr. Singh abandoned these basic two principles completely. Let us take a couple of examples.On July 20, 2005, a couple of days later Dr. Singh and President Bush issued a joint statement on the nuclear issue, the Prime Minister is reported to have said that he would try to build a broad national consensus on the issue within and outside parliament. But today can a lay man believe that there is a broad national consensus justifying Prime Minister’s statement? The Prime Minister and his External Affairs Minister went on saying that the draft safeguards agreement with the IAEA is a “classified document”, so the government could not make it available for public debate. So, apart from a few ministers and top government functionaries, nobody knows what the contents of this draft agreement are? But, after it appeared on American websites, embarrassedly made it public in India. So was it really a “classified document” in true sense? If it as so, then definitely the US government ditched India by making it public, as this document is directly related to our nuclear safeguard. But if it is not, then the government misled people of India in fear of facing further stern public debate. But we made to disbelieve the Prime Minister and One of his responsible Minister’s public statements on the issue as none of them or any government official opposed to the US government’s unilateral decision to put the draft agreement on its websites. Take another example broken commitment. On July 29, 2005, the PM had said, “We shall undertake some responsibilities and obligation as the United States. We expect the same rights and benefits as the US.” But where are the rights and benefits? The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not even recognised India as nuclear power. Again in the draft of the safeguard agreement that had circulated to the Board of Governors of the IAEA, had contained none of the India-specific provision having the same rights and benefits as the US. In fact, by compromising its strategic autonomy India would have a substandard position in global nuclear for ever. The list of broken commitments just goes on. The external Affairs Minister Pranab Mukharjee was over and over again giving assurance not only to its Left allies, but to the people of India, that after securing the trust vote, the government would go to the IAEA. But again the Prime Minister blatantly betrayed its people and Left allies, ultimately forcing them to withdraw support to the government. The PM was in so hurry to announce his step to go the IAEA; he even could not wait till his return home from Japan.Consider the extent of betrayal and deceitfulness that has committed on the Parliament and to its people. In July 2005, the PM had said, “parliament in our country sovereign”. But in July, 2008, his body language itself reflects that accountability to Parliament and to the people of India does not matter for him at all. At present he is only accountable to President Bush. But Dr. Singh why you are so eager to have a deal where India will be junior partner? You are talking about same rights and benefits as the US. But your statement in Japan itself contradicted it. You said there, “I am happy to report to the President that our relations have moved forward handsomely since our first meeting in July, 2005”. Dr. Singh who had given the right to report you to the President on behalf of whole Indian people? Don’t you feel shame to report to the President of America being the Prime Minister of the world’s largest sovereign democratic nation? Again, look at the incident that took place at parliament on July 22. Three BJP MPs openly alleged of offering them money to abstain from voting against the government. The incident has not been proved yet. But a private News Channel claims to have the video footage of this sting operation. If it is so, consider till what extent Indian parliamentary democracy has deteriorated. We entrust parliamentarians with solemn responsibility to serve the country and its millions of downtrodden people. But to make a deal for which the common people are not much concerned, some of these parliamentarians were reported to pay more than 25 crores either to support the government or to abstain. How could the Prime Minister do so? How does he patronise such corrupt politics? The citizens of India expected that Narasimha Rao’s days would not get repeated this time around. But he proved them wrong. Dr. Singh too could not rise above the tradition of dirty politics. The Prime Minister said in Parliament, “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” This is true. At present, the time has come for a very noble idea; that is to make Indian parliamentary democracy free from all filthy things. But is it possible to carry forward this idea without facing any opposition? In his speech in parliament he had cited Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of using atomic energy as a major instrument of development. But what will happen to Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of making India a Ram Rajya, where trustworthiness, non-violence and sravodaya are the guiding force?By showing the enormity of disregard to the Constitution of India and its tradition, the CPI(M) expelled Speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the party for “seriously compromising the position of the party.” Unfortunately, the Left party has also failed to realise that amidst all bad things happened in national politics in recent times, only Chatterjee is a person who could successfully uplift the democratic norms and values to a certain extent. By this act arrogance, the comrades once again demonstrated their unwillingness to accept democratic principles.(The writer teaches Political Science at Biswanath College) source: assam tribune
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