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Fifty Fifty
‘Odds & sods’ make the king
Is everything fair in love, war and politics? Or should parties in power be more respectful towards the ideals of democracy? After a while, these shameless efforts send an immoral signal to the next generation of politicians. Will no one ever resign gracefully?
Kishwar Desai
Sometimes
watching contemporary history unfold, especially in India, one forgets that this kind of tug of war, unseemly scenes in Parliament, the shocking denial of open corruption, deals being struck behind closed doors, and making almost a mockery of democratic ideals is something most other countries, all mature democracies now, have already witnessed, and survived. But the difference is that now the elected representatives, in many of those countries, have grown up and understood their responsibilities (especially in the European nations, barring a few such as Italy) and so has the electorate.

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A healthy majority, not a fractured mandate, is what is needed.
Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal |
The latter now are much more careful about re-electing those who are known to be corrupt, but in India, we still seem to believe that being ‘elected’ by the people somehow is a license to break all the rules. Of course one should not defend the indefensible and one always hopes that whichever government is in power, it will take the right decision and fulfil some of our expectations. But, alas, the temptation to stay in power appears overwhelming — a sense of entitlement emerges accompanied by desperate, almost ridiculous, efforts to keep the other guys out. But should it be so? Is everything fair in love, war and politics? Or should parties in power be more respectful towards the ideals of democracy because after a while these shameless efforts simply send a very immoral signal to the next generation of politicians. Will no one ever resign gracefully, and will people cling on to power till it reaches an almost embarrassing finale? Just because other parties might have been equally corrupt, does it give a justification for everyone to turn a blind eye? These are difficult questions, and sometimes one has to understand that perhaps this is a very painful period that we are passing through in India, and unless we, the electorate, make a decisive change, things might continue like this. And one wishes that our cinema, books, literature were more representative and realistic about what has been happening to our politics, and was able to give us a behind-the-scenes view. Often, that reflection can give us a fresh insight. One of the joys of living in London is that the arts here have no shyness in examining contemporary history. Just recently I watched a wonderful play This House by James Graham at the National Theatre. The play was about politics in the UK between 1974 and 79 when Edward Heath had been ousted, and the Labour Party had a wafer-thin majority. Interestingly, alongside me, in the audience, were members of the Labour Party who had actually lived through that period. It was fascinating to view the events unfolding on stage — from the perspective of those who still remembered the pain of being a government with a majority of just three. The government’s precarious existence made it completely dependent on a recalcitrant bunch of smaller parties referred rather impolitely as the “odds and sods”. This House showed all too grimly the Machiavellian scheming going on in the office of the party Whips , and no matter whether people were ill, sick or even dying, the ruling Labour Party had to ensure each member was present for each crucial vote. And the rest of the time was spent by a highly insecure government in often striking unholy deals with the “odds and sods”, a precursor, perhaps, of things to come in present-day coalition politics. But the play was equally scathing about the behaviour of the Conservatives who were in the Opposition, and rather ferociously so, leading often to chaotic scenes in the UK Parliament, including the swinging of a mace by Michael Hestletine! The Tories had smelt the weakness of the government — and were sometimes vicious in their adversarial stance — reminding the Labour Party that the distance between the two benches in Parliament is (even now) the length of two drawn swords. Thus, the Tories would dream up schemes of how to win and woo the “odds and sods”, and very often the Liberal Democrats, among others, became the bargaining chips. This was a very volatile scenario, and even though some good Bills were passed, the Tories eventually managed to stitch up an alliance which led to the passing of a vote of no confidence. But perhaps all this scheming and plotting, especially by the ruling Labour Party, took its toll and the country lurched to the right, decisively. Ultimately, Labour lost the election to Margaret Thatcher, a grocer’s daughter who represented a new stability. Is this, then, what it will mean for us in India today? Will the electorate realise their blunder of delivering a fractured mandate and give a healthy majority to the next government? I wish we could sit with Members of Parliament (as I did in London) and watch a theatrical representation of their political lives on stage —without anyone threatening to burn the theatre down! Kishwar Desai’s novel The Sea of Innocence has
just been published.
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