The Pioneer: March 12, 2005 Echoes of '75
The question can no longer be kept from being asked: Has India's Constitution been suspended, so much so that governments are installed not by popular will but the whims of hook-or-by-crook power monopolisers? If so, why doesn't the Congress-commandeered UPA just get democracy over with, by declaring Emergency? In every corner of the nation, democracy is being butchered by attempted fascist takeovers of popular government. Events in Jharkhand yesterday were only part of a UPA-written script whose anti-people contours are increasingly becoming clear. Just about everything happened in the Assembly except what was meant to-the floor test directed by the Supreme Court. Chief Minister Shibu Soren was to put MLAs where his mouth is. Instead, the UPA dealt yet another anti-democratic blow, this time against the might and wisdom of the highest judiciary. The SC had sought to shield the Constitution against a sustained assault mounted by JMM-Congress machinators, all-too-apparently assisted by Governor Syed Sibte Razi. Yet, despite its stipulation of orderly conduct of the floor test, hooliganism-sponsored chaos reigned in the Assembly from the time it convened. The Congress-JMM raucously declared the protem speaker could not preside over trials of strength. The sticking point was a non-issue, since the apex court had given clear directions that the Assembly's only agenda on March 11 would be peaceful conduct of the floor test. Since the protem speaker had been specifically asked to report to it on the outcome of the video-recorded proceedings, his eventual parroting of the UPA line amounts to contempt of court- one that will go down in history as a revolting display of legislative chicanery. Besides, the UPA forgets that, just the other day, the Goa Assembly saw a floor test in the absence of the Speaker who had quit, which allowed the Congress's Pratapsinh Rane to proclaim (short-lived) victory. Courtesy talk of a presidential reference the UPA had so craftily contemplated and then backtracked on, Mr PK Balmu-chu sought to give his flouting of judicial directives the gloss of propriety: He addressed a 'plea' to the President, asking him to refer to the court on the protem speaker's brief. Taking cover behind legal and jurisdictional tangles will not immunise the UPA against the ugly conclusion being drawn by the entire country. The JMM-Congress never had and does not have the strength to assume Jharkhand's reins. No regime sure of winning a floor test would set fire to its own house with stalling tactics. Not having the numbers, the UPA allies seem bent on defying any institution that interrogates their naked greed for power. They seem to have a backup plan in case they don't get Jharkhand's crown: Engineered constitutional crisis paving the way to President's Rule. The Assembly's adjournment till Tuesday-not-so-coincidentally the day set for the floor test by the discredited Governor-gives them the rogues' respite. There is no longer room for doubt the JMM-Congress intend to try to break the NDA ranks with money and muscle power. Every protective guard the apex court had put in place in the name of democratic norms has been wrecked. The SC must take immediate action against serial recidivists who have the audacity to sacrifice political morality to power lust. Jharkhand's black day only proves the court knew what it was doing when it acted against the "fraud perpetrated on the Constitution". Only, it had underestimated the depths to which the fraudsters could go. The nation stands diminished. That this should be so on account of the very forces at the nation's helm makes the tragedy all the greater.
