DC Edit | Keep Sectarian Politics Out Of Election For V-P

Informed and civilised debate and respect for the Opposition’s viewpoints are essential elements for a democracy to survive and succeed. Union home minister Amit Shah is justified in his lament at the All India Speakers Conference the other day on Parliament sessions being washed out by disruptions and acrimony with far less space and time being devoted for fruitful discussions. Mr Shah was also right in pointing out that disruptions affect the contribution of Parliament in nation-building.

While Mr Shah’s points of view must be taken seriously by members on both the treasury and Opposition benches, his criticism of the INDIA bloc’s candidate for the vice-presidential election runs contrary to his own prescription for healthy democratic debates. According to the Union home minister, Justice (Rtd) Sudershan Reddy’s 2011 judicial order as part of a bench of the Supreme Court declaring the operations of Salwa Judum, a government-backed anti-Naxal militia in Chhattisgarh, unconstitutional and ordering its disbanding came in the way of ending left wing extremism.

Mr Shah has set a deadline of March 31, 2026, to end Maoism in India. One may differ on the approach needed to tackle the Maoists who have scant respect for the Constitution and the law. Their intervention in the tribal areas is also questionable. However, the government is very well within its rights to mount an offence against this ideology and its practitioners on the condition that it must take up the task only through the means the Constitution and the law permit.

The country’s apex court can judge in no other way than the bench in which Justice (Rtd) Reddy was a member did when called upon to decide on the constitutionality and legality of a militia operating outside the legal framework.

The refusal to approach a political issue from a political point of view apart, Mr Shah’s hardline position suffers from an undemocratic attitude in that it berates anyone who differs from his line now or in the past. It also runs contrary to Mr Shah’s suggestion for better debates in Parliament.

The election to the second highest office, that too when the results are a foregone conclusion, is the ideal occasion to raise the level of debate, for it can take up ideas that must run the nation instead of grassroots-level politics. But Mr Shah’s interpretation of a judgment delivered a decade and a half ago not only vitiates the election debates; it does worse. As a group of 18 retired judges point out, “misrepresenting a Supreme Court ruling by a senior leader can have a chilling effect on judicial independence”.

That Mr Shah’s unfair criticism of Justice Reddy on the basis of a judgment has not only failed to help advance the cause of healthy democratic debates, in Parliament and outside; it has sent a wrong and dangerous message to the judiciary as well that their members will be assessed based on the political expediency of the ruling dispensation at any point in history.

Politicians of all hues, especially those in power, may seriously and honestly introspect on the ways to make our legislatures and democratic processes, including elections, a platform for exchange of ideas instead of reducing them into occasions to advance sectarian politics and settle scores.