It reflects poorly on the entire political class that India’s new parliament is inaugurated amid bitter conflict and confrontation. The old parliament, which has been in use since 1927, had served its purpose. The new one is meant to meet the needs of a vastly different India with a population in several multiples of what it was when the British first built it for the natives. Anyway, a new parliament with old and stale politics of bitter confrontation and strife does not augur well for the polity. Nor for the people whom it is supposed to represent. How we wish at least on this momentous occasion our politicians who normally outdo Kilkenny cats when it comes to verbally clawing at one another had somehow avoided the confrontation over the opening of the new parliament.
Whether President Droupadi Murmu, and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ought to have done the honours, formally throwing open the grand new building with a provision to seat a larger number of members than the old one had capacity for is a matter of intense debate. However, what is undeniable is that even the Opposition parties which decided to boycott Sunday’s inauguration on the ground that Murmu, and not Modi, ought to have opened it have on numerous occasions treated the President with scant respect. The imperious manner in which Sonia Gandhi treated the then Presidents Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil are evidenced by the videos doing the rounds on the social media. The point is that in their quest to confront Modi a perennially peeved Congress latched on to yet another excuse to boycott what ought to have been a moment of collective celebration for the entire political class, nay, the people of India. After all, you do not get a new parliament every other day. It is a proud moment for India and we are glad to notice that despite his criticism of the inauguration by Modi, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah had the generosity of spirit to record that the new parliament looked grand and well-conceived.
The fact that several Congress leaders while in power had spoken of the need for a new parliament is undeniable. Their problem seems to be that Modi would walk away with credit. Well, if he has done it despite bitter resistance from all quarters in the Opposition credit cannot be denied to him. It is churlishness in the extreme to quibble over the person cutting the ribbon, so to say, rather than concentrate on the utility and purposefulness of the new building. Yes, given the significance of the historic moment, the Prime Minister ought to have reached out to the Opposition. A display of humility on a momentous occasion ought to have become the incumbent leader of the country. Confrontation and conflict have their place in any vibrant and bitterly polarized polity. But there are moments when the nation needs to rise above all differences and partake in collective celebrations over the bequest to the nation of a new parliament, which hopefully will serve the coming generations for more than the 75 years that the old British-built parliament did in independent India.
Modi missed the opportunity to climb down to climb up in the nation’s esteem. Had he extended the olive branch to the Opposition, invited it to set aside its differences and join in the momentous opening of a new parliament building, he would have emerged greater in the eyes of even his visceral critics. It is on occasions like this the difference between a politician and a statesman is seen most starkly. We know it is not in Modi’s character, his long CV to bend, to bow to those who seek to pull him down with reason or without, but then the opening of the new parliament was not an ordinary event. Generations to come will manage the affairs of the nation from this grand new edifice with all the latest amenities, fully digitized operational facilities, with due provision to seat over a thousand MPs as and when the new delimitation commission rationalizes the unwieldy numbers each MP is supposed to represent at present and creates a few hundred more constituencies. Even the distraction of the Sengol, a gold spectre, only helped further embitter relations between the ruling and the main Opposition party. What a pity a moment of national celebration was marred by ugly politicking and confrontation.
