House of Spirits

69

Monsoon sessions of Parliament are generally turbulent. Under hovering rainclouds, the mid-year gathering of peoples representatives generally sees the rage of the long summer reach boiling point. But if you look at this monsoon session of the 14th Lok Sabha, the only sentiment you might experience is bathos and anticlimax. The delirium of our politicians was never more in evidence than in this session. The sheer disconnect between a growing conscientious civil society and a cynical lethargic parliament was never more sharply in focus. Two issues dominated the monsoon session of this parliament. One is the Office of Profit Bill and the other is the "mole" controversy created by former external Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh's imaginings about a spy in the PMO of Narasimha Rao. The context of India at a time when these issues are obsessing Parliament, is curious. Mumbai has just been hit by....