Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev inspired by NAC, not govt

There are 545 members of the current Lok Sabha and 245 members of the Rajya Sabha — 790 Members of Parliament in all.

The Lok Sabha is the assembly of the people — where the people’s representatives convene to legislate on behalf of all of us. The Rajya Sabha is the Council of States, guiding policies on behalf the States. It has 233 members elected by state legislatures and 12 who are nominated.

These 12 are civil society representatives, drawn from all parts of society. Thus, there are 790 people who are directly or indirectly elected by We, The People. We have a ruling party that elects or selects a prime minister and the PM in turn selects a council of ministers - The Executive.

We have legislation drawn up by the government that is discussed and debated in Parliament, and we have bills becoming acts that govern the citizens of India. That is the theory.

But, in the last seven months or so, this system has broken down. The government is unable to govern. The opposition is too busy protesting to oppose anything in a meaningful manner. The legislature has been reduced to empty benches. There is zero debate.

And budgets worth lakhs of crores are passed without adequate questioning. There is a vacuum and that is caused neither by corruption, nor by coalition dharma; it is caused by the complete lack of leadership across the political spectrum at the Centre.
Some of our states seem to have leaders who have a vision and a plan.

Whether we agree with that or not is immaterial; at least there is a starting point. Tarun Gogoi in Assam, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Narendra Modi in Gujarat, Omar Abdullah in J&K, Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, Mayawati in UP, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal — they all lead. But at the Centre, there is a leadership deficit.

Leadership is not about a great personality or mesmerising body language or even speeches that inspire. It is about a vision. It is about setting an agenda. It is about communicating that vision and agenda to all stakeholders and that includes people who support you, oppose you, and the citizens at large.

It is about being able to build consensus by appealing to the best in others, not by coercion but by knowing the worst about others. It is about putting something greater than all stakeholders as the goal to achieve, and ensuring that no one loses track of that goal. It is about having the Big Picture.

Where is the Big Picture? Both the ‘national parties’ seem to have lost sight of their vision. Both are happy grandstanding and playing politics while issues remain untracked. What is worse is that both have outsourced the ‘vision thing’ to someone else.

A ‘someone’ who is not representative of any constituency in the country: Civil Society. The Congress party is guilty of foisting an unaccountable NAC [National Advisory Council] to make policy, to draft bills, to set the agenda, a role that is supposed to be played by ministers. The government has been mute at the hijacking of its powers to act as stipulated in the Constitution.

The BJP is compensating for the government’s muteness by a shrillness that is deafening. It is so focussed on scoring brownie points on debate in front of the television cameras that it doesn’t realise it is lurching from protest to protest, so much so that it has become a farce. And it is not protesting about the hijacking of the Cabinet’s role by a commission. It can’t. Because when it comes to power it will have its own set of unaccountable advisors.

Into this chaos and leadership vacuum have stepped in competing civil societies - Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev - that are challenging not so much the power of the government as the right of the NAC to be the only civil society to make policy and draft law.

There is no one civil society in India: there are many civil societies and unless our legislators get their act in place and put the Republic of India above their petty bickering, more of these non-elected actors will turn up, staking a claim on power. Unless the Congress party disbands the NAC or brings it within the accountability ambit, these other ‘civil societies’ are going to turn up.

Finally, policy-making or legislation by hunger-fast makes for bad precedent. What will you do if a bunch of people in any state - led by a charismatic leader - begin a fast-unto-death for independence? To prevent that from happening, parliament has to get back to work and start delivering.

And if this Parliament is not willing to work, maybe we need a new one.