On December 19, a first information report (FIR) was filed against Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for pushing a couple of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs and causing grievous hurt that landed them in the ICU of a hospital in the capital. Along with this, a woman BJP MP from Nagaland complained that the LoP had misbehaved with her. Both the charges clearly display that the ruling BJP treats its parliamentary opposition as its vile foe.
It began with Union home minister Amit Shah’s remark on December 18 in Rajya Sabha that repeatedly reciting the name of Ambedkar has become a fashion. Shah said if they chanted the name of god instead, they would go to heaven. It led to a protest by the opposition outside the parliament against the insult to Ambedkar. Rahul Gandhi claims that as he was entering the parliament, the passage was blocked by BJP MPs. In the chaos, someone pushed him, and in the impact, two BJP MPs were hurt. The Congress also claimed that Mallikarjun Kharge, party president and the LoP in Rajya Sabha, was also pushed, and was hurt.
These incidents show an unprecedented low in the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition, particularly the Congress, in India. It is not out of context that in the 17th Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was suspended from the house and he returned only after the Supreme Court gave a verdict against his suspension by Speaker Om Birla.
Obviously, during BJP’s decade-long rule since 2014 under the leadership of Narendra Modi, the opposition has been treated with aggressive derision. Modi’s every speech in parliament begins with his attack on all the wrongs done by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Repeatedly and wilfully, his statements are not kind to facts. That since 2014, a campaign to dub Rahul Gandhi scornfully a ‘pappu’ (dullard) was carried out by the media unit of the BJP, is not out of context.
Opposition since Independence
The opposition in India has been on a roller-coaster since India’s parliamentary democracy was carefully grafted and nurtured since the first general elections in 1951-52.
The constitution was inaugurated just a year earlier on January 26, 1950. The Congress emerged strongest without any competition. It was left to prime minister Nehru and the Congress to nurture democracy by fostering the opposition, which they did with responsibility. So much so, given the brittleness of the parties in the opposition, factions within the Congress functioned as opposition. Nehru wrote an article in 1937 under the pseudonym Chanakya that his immense popularity had all the dangers of Caesarism, a charismatic leader turning a dictator. Assuming the office of the prime minister a decade later, he proved himself wrong.
This situation lasted till his demise. He treated tall leaders on the opposition benches such as Ram Manohar Lohia (his staunchest critic), Acharya Kriplani, Piloo Mody, and so on, with dignity. Nobody else describes how Nehru treated the opposition and its leaders better than Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the stalwart leader of the BJP, its first prime minister and the one of the tallest parliamentarian India has produced. On several occasions, Nehru introduced him to foreign delegates as one of the brightest young parliamentarians of India, even as a future prime minister. He was appointed as a member of the National Integration Council in 1961. In fact, once, when Nehru was attacked viciously, Vajpayee chided his colleagues whether it was mandatory to attack the prime minister. On Nehru’s death, Vajpayee’s emotional reaction was, “Sir, a dream has been shattered, a song silenced, a flame has vanished in the infinite.”
Even though during Indira Gandhi’s regime the government opposition relations did not remain the same, but she consulted senior opposition leaders, particularly Vajpayee. When Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, he included Atal Bihari Vajpayee in an official delegation to the UN so that the BJP leader could get treatment for his kidney ailment in the US. When P.V. Narasimha Rao during his premiership deputed Vajpayee as leader of the Indian delegation to the special session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva, he successfully countered a Pakistan-sponsored resolution to censure India on its record of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir.
The opposition grew stronger since the 1990s. It was also the period when the regional and state parties occupied nearly one-third space in the Lok Sabha. They were also sought to form coalition governments since 1989. The relationship, though competitive, moved to even keel.
2014 onwards
Obviously, the government and opposition in India have had the usual acrimonious and competitive relationship, but not the animus we have been witnessing since 2014. It has reflected in two ways, neither healthy for parliamentary democracy.
First, whenever the prime minister decides to come to either house of the parliament, evading all other issues, he begins deriding Nehru and then moves on to the Congress. His team digs out for him not only all the perceived wrongs done by Nehru, but also how he did not treat the leaders of the national movement whom he had adopted in his party – such as Sardar Patel and Ambedkar – well. Differences of policy and principles are sprinkled with lies, half-truths and misinterpretations to project Nehru as the biggest villain in the history of modern Indian politics.
Second, the presiding officers of both the houses of parliament are clearly under instructions to not only ignore the opposition, but also to not record their statements in case they are critical of the government or the prime minister. The chairman of Rajya Sabha, who is the vice-president of the country and holds the position ex-officio, also forgets the non-partisan nature of his office. His constant refrain remains, “Nothing is going on records.” Both behave as their partymen rather the constitutional functionaries.
The worst in the history of the Indian parliament happened in December 2023 when 141 lawmakers – 95 from the Lok Sabha and 46 from the Rajya Sabha – were suspended from the House. It included Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. We can only hope that the prime minister will understand the criticality of the opposition and get inspired by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, if by no other leader.
Ajay K. Mehra is a political scientist. He was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21 and principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College, Delhi University (2018).
