Trust Vote at Parliament: Whose Trust is it, anyway?

I am posting this on the 22nd of July 2008. There is a reason why I mention the date at the very outset. I want you to remember the exact time I am writing this. Every Indian today (by ‘Indian’ I mean not simply people born in this country, but people who are even the slightest aware of the socio-political happenings in the country) knows about the Nuclear Deal and all that is going on surrounding it. We all know that the Left (comprising of CPI (M), CPI, Forward Bloc, and RSP) was/is against the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. On finding the ruling UPA Government (headed by Indian National Congress) not ready to accept the wish of the Left, the latter has withdrawn their support from the coalition Government, and hence, amidst such a sky-high inflation and grave economic condition of the country, the people have been made to eagerly await the Trust Vote on 22^nd July.

Possibly, the vote has already been executed by the time you are reading this and we all know whether we are going to experience an early election. But, as far as my objective in this write-up is concerned, that hardly matters.

Whatever the outcome of the Trust Vote of 22^nd July be, it will go down in the history as the decision of the people of India. Yes, you may be hardly aware of the business and clauses of the IAEA or the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, but, in a few years time, write-ups on Indian history and polity will state that you and me and she and he, ‘We The Indians’, have decided for/against the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

Why am I saying all these? Before I say anything else, let me QUOTE a few lines from a couple of reports published in The Times Of India newspaper (20-07-08).

1. Govt nears comfort zone ahead of vote

JMM In Bag, Cong Now Needs SP To Keep Its Flock Intact

With just a couple of laps to go, UPA has gained a vital lead in the gruelling marathon it has run against political rivals since the Left withdrew support. It is close to sealing what could be a ‘government-saving pact’ with elusive Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren.

Congress negotiators made headway with the JMM chief with the offer of a cabinet berth and a minister of state at the Centre, which the tribal outfit will get when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expands his team, possibly next month… his (Shibu Soren’s) demand for the deputy CM’s (of the state of Jharkhand) post for his son is said to be under consideration…

2. SP man in the morning, with Maya at noon

Shahid Siddiqui (a Rajya Sabha MP), frozen in many frames with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and is deputy Amar Singh hawking the nuclear deal, woke up to the same routine on Saturday…

Except that at 2 pm, he was standing beside BSP chief Mayawati, outside her residence, cursing the nuclear deal as “against Urdu-speaking people” and saying that he was feeling suffocated in the SP for one and half months…. it was a (Siddiqui’s) swift flight to Mayawati’s base…

For BSP, the Rajya Sabha MP (read Shahid Siddiqui) does not matter much now. But its plot to link the deal with “Muslim interests” made him an ideal candidate (for Mayawati) to trigger a sense of unrest in the rival banks (SP being a part of that)…

***[inputs within parentheses are mine]

So…

I am quite sure that you have noticed (with raised eyebrows?) the phrases/words such as “Congress negotiators”, “offer of…”, etc. in the first of the two reports. It is also very hard to miss the undertone of the second report which

· Yet again brings to fore the opportunist face of politicians in India

· Nasty mingling of vested political interests with religious sentiments on the common man

Just re-read those phrases - …’cursing the nuclear deal as “against the Urdu-speaking people”… or, ‘link the deal with “Muslim interests…”…

Friend… is not it just too obvious to miss – this nasty political trade going on there at the centre? (In fact, it is so frustratingly nasty that I am not too sure whether we can call it as ‘political’ anymore. After all, ‘politics’ has its own definition.) And these are just two of the hundreds of like reports being published in several magazines, journals, and newspapers over the last couple of weeks or so. Ever since it became clear that the UPA govt is going to face the acid test of this Trust Vote (on 22^nd July), this game of drawing MPs towards one’s camp started. And, you cannot be that dumb not to realize the elementary fact that MPs, either for or against the motion, are, in no way, being driven by the issue at stake. Their consideration lie entirely with their immediate as well as far reaching gains (any way, the General Election to choose the country’s next government is not too far… quite naturally, political parties are re-thinking and re-orienting themselves, trying to assess the pole that will suit them the best)

So, whether a party and its MPs will vote for the motion or against has nothing to do with what actually culminates into the very trust vote – the Nuclear Deal and strategic alliance with the US. But, as I stated earlier, whatever the outcome of the confidence vote be, it will go down in history as mandate of the ‘people of India’. After all, I repeat, India is a democracy, “government of the people, by the people, for…”…

Does it disturb you in any way? This decisions of the MPs and ‘political’ netas, based entirely on their own material gains and cunning rivalry, keeping at stake the actual issue – the country’s interest, and these very decisions being labelled as the decision of the people. If the ruling UPA government wins majority (271 is the figure that they need), it will go down in history as “the people of India welcomed the Indo-US pact and…”. And, in case the government fails, it will be read as “the people of India opposed the Indo-US nuclear deal and…”. May be it sounds incredible to you! But, whether you take it or not, this exactly is what has happened in the past, and is happening today. So, is this the way history is written? The will of a few (often corrupted) people being overtly generalised and written down as the will of an entire generation? Then, which history are we to bank upon? Whom are we to ask? Where are we to…?

image courtesy:

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