Ritual And Farce

Gujarat provides yet more proof that the law on disqualification of dissidents no longer works. It has had no deterrent effect on dissidence; one only has to look at the composition of the Lok Sabha to see that dissidents hold the centrestage and mainline parties have become peripheral. All that the law has done is to introduce new elements of ritual and farce into our increasingly frivolous political system. There could be nothing more ironic than the BJP legislators going to Mahatma Gandhi's cottage to take an oath of loyalty, or more hilarious than legislators being carried around in buses and planes, wined and dined, held in golden fetters. The party system is on the verge of breaking down, and the law on dissidence does not even begin to address the problem. What is needed is more fundamental reform