The WikiLeaks affair — which rocked our Parliament last week and again on Wednesday — should have just been a laugh, and then been allowed to slip through the sieve. It needed media exposure, and some exchange of gossip to keep things lively in the political space as might befit an active democratic ambience. That might have been the right way to treat diplomatic tittle-tattle. Instead, our politicians, not to say some of the chatterati, avidly opted for the tactics of foaming at the mouth. The outcome could not but have been a disappointment, and also some egg on the face, for some, as the BJP in particular has learnt.

The principal Opposition party had begun with a bang — in Parliament demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, no less, on the implied WikiLeaks allegation that the UPA-1 government had survived the Lok Sabha trust vote in July 2008 by “purchasing” Opposition MPs. The party ended its engagement with the WikiLeaks business on a whimper in the House on Wednesday when it became evident that there was a possibility (word on the ongoing police inquiry appears to hint at this, though the issue is not clinched) that BJP MPs, as part of a strategy to show the first Manmohan Singh government as corrupt, set themselves up for sale, but the plan backfired. Ironically, no one on the BJP benches turned a hair when Dr Manmohan Singh laid into Lal Krishna Advani, who remains his party’s pre-eminent figure despite the decline in his official status.
Do allegations of “purchasing” MPs call for an investigation? They do. That’s obvious. Working under the remit of the then Speaker, the redoubtable Somnath Chatterjee, whose sturdy reputation for fair play is widely acknowledged, a parliamentary inquiry found there was no conclusive evidence to support the charge. The Prime Minister merely quoted this finding, but he was accused of “misleading” Parliament. It is a black spot on our democracy when adducing the report of a parliamentary committee is held in contempt. A criminal investigation was also ordered into the allegation of trading of MPs, and entrusted to the Delhi police. That is still going on, and reportedly poised to take an interesting turn. In view of this, it is hard to see why many Opposition figures called for an investigation when that was already on. They did not make clear, but were they referring to an investigation into the diplomatic cables sent by the American embassy in New Delhi to the US state department in Washington, made public by WikiLeaks? If so, the idea is preposterous, and can only have emanated from weak political minds. Think of it. Will India countenance an official inquiry by a host nation (the US or any other) into its confidential diplomatic communications? Typically, such cables are in the nature of assessments or surmises (about a government or an official, and change according to situations). By definition, these cannot be a subject matter of investigation. The government is right in holding that diplomatic cables are “speculative, unverified and unverifiable”. Court summons cannot be sent to writers of such assessments (diplomats, who legitimately enjoy immunity without which they cannot do their job) to appear in the witness box. We are not in an age or place where offering opinions is a crime, leave alone by accredited diplomats.
None of this matters as much as why the Opposition parties decided to home in on the WikiLeaks case when there is so much fodder around, and when it is self-evident that diplomatic cables are beyond prying? On current evidence, it appears that UPA-2’s opponents would seize at any straw. In the event it appears futile to expect that proceedings in Parliament are going to be smooth in the foreseeable future.