Valson Thampu

Semantics is a serious problem with the Congress in Kerala. It seems incapable of distinguishing opposition from obstruction. The role of the opposition becomes, then, no more than ensuring that the present government fails, which is mistaken for serving as a watch-dog of people’s welfare.
Ruling dispensations, we know, practice corruption, which is the engine that drives governance today. Apparently, the present opposition-combine was voted out last time for its alleged corrupt ways. Very likely, the same fate will befall the present one. But, that does not mean that the people of Kerala will get the good governance they deserve. No party in India –ruling or opposing- is interested in good governance. They are keen only to obstruct governance in order to attain power. So, the duty of opposition parties is understood vulgarly as blocking governmental initiatives, indiscriminately. Consider an example. The BJP was dead against implementing the GST by the UPA. It discovered its usefulness as soon as it came to power. It became, then the turn of the Congress, to oppose (read, obstruct) the measure they were keen to implement.
The positive essence of opposition is resistance which, if practiced aright, is constructive. One does not resist ideas or policies just because they are championed by a party that one wants to displace. This idea of opposition is adventitious and infantile. It fails to convince or inspire the people. Instead, it discredits its practitioners for the reason that it hurts the welfare of the people. Resistance of the democratically wholesome kind is based on a vision of the ideal. The policy or action of a government needs to be resisted for its deviation from the ideal. One resists a course of action because one has a better alternative to offer. Else, resistance obstruction in disguise.
The principle of resistance inheres in life, nature and history. Nothing dynamic exists in balance without resistance of one form or another. The stability of the cosmos –indeed, every system- rests on a dynamic balance of contrary pulls. If force of gravity were not resist us, we won’t be able to move forward! Blocking the highway with a heap of stones is not resistance, but obstruction. Meaningful resistance must be predicated on positive outcomes. Consider a familiar experience. You water your garden. You want the water from the hose pipe to spout farther. What do you do? You constrict the mouth of the pipe suitably. You ‘oppose’ or resist the flow of water to help it to reach the desired area. It is infantile to choke the mouth of the pipe and say that it is gardening!
The purpose of resistance is to occasion a struggle which, in the parliamentary context, expresses itself as reasoned debate. Struggle is of the essence of life. “Where there is struggle,” wrote Schelling, “there is life.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom, 1802). Trees in the forest, Kant notes in his essay, Idea for a Universal History (1784), grow straight and strong because they resist each other in their struggle for light and space. Lone trees, standing on hill tops, get gnarled. Nothing is understood clearly until it is debated. Conversely, nothing that fails to generate clarity should be deemed debate. Debate is a civilized form of democratic resistance. Its opposites are (a) paralyzing civic life and (b) polluting the minds of the people through prime-time channel discussions. The latter amount to no more than abusing each other. I feel worried that children and young men and women are growing up exposed to this show-cased incivility.
What used to be subtle spins of news and views are no longer subtle. They are broad, and often offensive to one’s residual sense of fair-play. Obviously they are under the impression that they help promote the interests of a particular party. But the reality is just the opposite. They could serve the party better by being objective and factual, so that it realizes its folly and begins to act sensibly.
I share this concern as one who believes in the crucial importance of ‘opposition’ to the health of a democracy. The tragedy of Indian politics –in states and at the Centre – is the utter disarray of the opposition. This is not the achievement of the BJP. This is an infection the opposition parties have invited upon themselves. It is because they function in the ‘obstruction’ mode, rather than in the opposition mode, that there can be no unity among them. Their first priority is to obstruct each other. So, the Congress, which needs the support of the Left in Rajasthan, would want to see the same ideology eradicated from Kerala. And vice versa. The left and the right are obstructive in Kerala. They differ from each other only in the shades and modes of this malady. Obstructionism is powered by the craving for power and profit. True opposition is geared to ensuring good governance.
One word more; that’s about horse trading. The party that has suffered most from it is the Congress. Details need not be enumerated. Of course, it is a crime against democracy to buy and sell elected representatives. But, equally, it is a crime against democracy, and an insult to the voters, to field candidates who are no better than items in cattle markets. There is no hint yet that the Congress is willing to learn from the chronic bloodletting it suffers in state after state. So, the truth needs to be stated.
This is an issue of extreme seriousness for the Congress in particular. For the foreseeable future, it has to stay as an opposition party. Its only hope, if it has one at all, lies in demonstrating authenticity in discharging the duties of democratic opposition. By behaving like a national mad-man –adopting contradictory stands on same issues in different contexts – it has placed itself in the orbit of obstructionism. It is the path to assured self-destruction.