After Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office, the Opposition has strayed in its vision and frayed in its mission. As I write, the principal Opposition party in India is struggling to keep its identity intact. After being in power for a cumulative time period of more than six decades, the Congress abhors the idea of being in Opposition despite the hooks and crooks it has resorted to. There is a high chance that the third time won’t be a charm for the Opposition in 2024 either. Counter-intuitive to the word “Opposition”, a credible, committed and dependable Opposition is imperative for democracies to be in the pink of health. India is constantly wrestling with forces, external and internal, that are working against the interest of the country. In order to defend the integrity and sovereignty of India, it is a matter of fact that the political forces will have to work in unison and have the maturity to keep their binary differences aside when the crisis is perpetuated by anti-India forces.
A divided house is vulnerable and its populace is impressionable.
Be it the recent commentary on Facebook by Wall Street Journal, vilification of India’s Prime Minister by the Time magazine, opinions sans facts carried by Washington Post, biased calculus of social fabric indicators by USCIRF or organisations like Amnesty: They have taken a consistent anti-India position post 2014. Without impinging their editorial freedom, it is a matter of serious concern if foreign media and the political Opposition are in perfect symphony.
The Opposition needs to take its job seriously and not behave like a petulant brat who is on a fault-finding mission just so that he can abdicate his own responsibility and go unnoticed. Unfortunately, the Congress, the only party in the Opposition that has significant contacts in the foreign media, is oblivious to the impact its drivel has on India’s global position.
For example, when Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, insinuated on the floor of the House that Article 370 is bilateral and not an internal matter of India, he gave a handle to the foreign forces eager to indict India. Abrogation of Article 370 was a matter that could have certainly invited internal debate; but to throw it out of India’s purview of jurisdiction is worse than those who cited reasons otherwise. It is impossible to carry forward India’s story if it is going to be smeared by its own leaders.
In 2003, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was not keen to send Indian troops to Iraq under pressure from the US. He invited CPM leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet and CPI leader A.B. Bardhan for tea, and asked them if India should send troops to Iran. When the two leaders answered in negative, the PM quipped, saying why they’re not protesting enough. Leaders took the cue. Protests followed the subsequent day and the government made a case for not sending the troops. This is a classic example of how the Opposition can help the government wade through external issues and yet oppose their policies back home.
On 14 February 2019 when India’s men in uniform were brutally murdered by a suicide bomber in Pulwama, around 48 countries of the world stood with India and unequivocally denied support to terrorism. Apart from Pakistan (where the Jaish-e-Mohammad group which took responsibility for the attack, is based), the only pressure group that did not condemn the attack unconditionally was the Congress. They blamed the Narendra Modi government like a doubting Thomas instead of answering to the call of duty. In an extreme moment of naïve politics, the attack was linked with upcoming elections. Now, if some of the elected countrymen proactively ascribe to conspiracy, it is juvenile to expect antagonists to show restraint. Clearly, the Congress did not realise that in its bid to play high voltage politics, it ended up being a peddler for anti-India forces.
Visuals of Members of the Upper House (Rajya Sabha is associated with innate dignity and intellectual integrity) being marshalled out of the Hall told a tale of eroding grandeur that once the House boasted of. Protest is a legitimate form of Opposition in a democracy; however, there is a very thick line between protest and hooliganism. It is scary to even imagine the messaging these visuals would carry from the world’s largest democracy. Right from burning the national capital while the country hosted US President Donald Trump to now parliamentarians behaving like a violent mob, there is little that is left for the world to imagine before it drubs us yet again as a country failing to operate as a civilised federation.
Every time the Opposition questions the validity of the judiciary by suggesting collusion with power and interference, they are supporting anti-India forces which have been trying for decades to declare India as a weak democracy. Starting point of colonisation begins with making a case that the territory is unable to get its act together, and therefore unfit to rule by itself. Anti-India forces don’t need to invest in resources anymore to build the anti-India spin when elected representatives are berating their country themselves. In fact, we cannot even accuse them of destabilising the domestic sentiment since it all starts in our own backyard.
Ever since India gained independence, vested interests have interfered and prevented resolution of internal matters of importance. However, these interests could never leverage the existing apertures because the Opposition traditionally took a clear position with respect to influential matters like National security, left-wing extremism, border conflicts, trade, social justice and independence of institutions. For example, while the Congress governments in the past did flirt with the idea of seeking third-party support, the Opposition did not concede. On the contrary, played the part of a “Chowkidar” and guarded the interests of the country.
Today, there is an urgent need for the Opposition to hyphenate politics and national interest. If the Opposition is going to condone issues based on politics, of course the world would like to believe we are a fragile country that rigs elections and exchanges power for perks. Political ideologies warring within the country should never forget that for the world, all of them together represent the critical mass of India.
The writer is an independent policy analyst based in New Delhi. The views expressed are personal.