September 16, 2006
 

The politics of outside 'support'

An unhealthy mechanism of outside support has made its way into Indian politics over the last 15 years, especially in the last 5-6 years.

Providing outside 'support' is a wonderful way of having rights without any duties. Parties doing so can place any number of demands on the government that they're supporting without needing to make any sort of concession in return. They're in effect an 'Opposition' within the government, one that goes a long way towards contributing to political instability.

We have the example of the Left parties at the centre who oppose the government on foreign policy, economic reforms, legislation items etc., but claim to be 'supporting' the government.

Now, the Congress(I) seems set to 'support' the new government in Jharkhand from outside.

It is high time someone, perhaps the Supreme Court again, intervened to protect voters from the misery of repeated elections caused due to outside 'supporters' pulling down governments by making it mandatory for parties to either be in government or be in the opposition. Parties must not be allowed to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

Update: Given "The Hindu" group's affiliations with the Left parties, it would obviously have been wishful thinking on my part to hope for my left-bashing in this post to appear in print. So a censored letter was published.

Labels: communist, crazy commies, left, loony left