Will the Opposition allow Parliament to function now that the Minister has resigned? That is the question before the nation after the first week of Parliament’s Winter Session was reduced to political theatre, slogan-shouting and adjournments.
If the answer is still “No”, then the country can safely conclude that this was never about students. It was about politics. Pure and simple.
The Modi government has blinked. It has conceded the principal demand of the agitating students by accepting the Minister’s resignation. In any parliamentary democracy, such retreats are neither unprecedented nor signs of weakness. Governments make political accommodations when circumstances demand. Mature oppositions recognise such gestures and move forward to debate the larger issues. Petulant oppositions merely move the goalposts.
The Congress-led Opposition must now decide which category it belongs to.
There is an old saying in politics: never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. Ironically, the Opposition appears determined to interrupt itself whenever the ruling dispensation presents it an opportunity to behave responsibly. It did so repeatedly over the last decade and has paid a heavy electoral price for it.
The students’ agitation itself has divided public opinion. Some genuinely sympathise with the concerns raised by the students. Equally, millions of others believe competitive examinations are exactly that—competitive. Not every aspirant can succeed when lakhs compete for a few hundred seats. Merit, unfortunately, has no sympathy clause.
No government can distribute success certificates to those who fail. What it can do—and what it should do—is create more opportunities by establishing more institutions and increasing the number of seats. Beyond that, politics cannot become an alternative to performance.
That perhaps explains why sections of the Opposition desperately seek to convert every agitation into a political movement. Having lost the confidence of voters election after election, protests have become convenient political oxygen cylinders to remain relevant in national discourse.
Their predicament is understandable. Their politics isn’t.
Supporting agitating students is legitimate. Hijacking their cause isn’t.
If the government has conceded the principal demand and yet Parliament is not allowed to function, what exactly is the Opposition fighting for? Students or headlines? Accountability or adjournments? Reform or relevance?
The answer may not be difficult to guess.
The Modi-Shah political machine has demonstrated time and again that it possesses an extraordinary ability to convert criticism into political capital. Ask those who mocked demonetisation, predicted the end of Modi after successive controversies or prematurely wrote his political obituary more times than they would care to remember. The obituary writers invariably ended up becoming election analysts explaining another BJP victory.
Perhaps that is why the Opposition continues to be its own worst enemy.
Every minute Parliament is disrupted strengthens the NDA’s narrative that the Opposition is interested in preventing governance rather than improving it. Every slogan raised in the Well of the House potentially translates into silent votes being cast elsewhere. The Bharatiya voter may occasionally dislike governments, but he dislikes political obstruction even more.
The voter has matured. Unfortunately, parts of the Opposition haven’t.
This is not the Bharat of the 1980s or even the 1990s where political narratives were manufactured in drawing rooms and newspaper columns. Today’s voter carries Parliament in his pocket. He watches disruptions live on his mobile phone and forms his own conclusions. MPs caught on camera reducing Parliament to a protest venue shouldn’t be surprised if their electorate catches up with them during the next election cycle.
The Congress-led Opposition would do well to remember that there is a thin line between parliamentary protest and parliamentary vandalism. Cross that line repeatedly and political consequences become inevitable.
The Winter Session has several critical legislations awaiting debate. Educational reforms, electoral reforms and other important Bills deserve discussion, disagreement and scrutiny. Parliament exists precisely for that purpose. Governments must be questioned. Ministers must be held accountable. Policies must be challenged.
But none of that is possible if Parliament itself becomes the casualty.
The Opposition, therefore, stands at a political crossroads. It can behave like a government-in-waiting or continue behaving like an agitation in search of an issue.
If it chooses the latter, it should not complain when voters remind it that Parliament was never meant to be a permanent protest site.
The Minister has resigned. The government has retreated. The ball is now squarely in the Opposition’s court.
If it still chooses disruption over debate, it must understand one thing—it isn’t cornering the government. It is merely buying trouble.
And knowing Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s political instincts, that trouble may well arrive gift-wrapped at the next election.
