Security for the LoP in a democracy is paramount and non-negotiable

India must learn from past experiences and ensure that people vital to the democratic process, such as the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, are protected from threats to their life, writes Santosh Paul.

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DURING the last couple of weeks, dangerously disturbing statements and highly publicised threats of assassination have been made against the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

It is most unfortunate that these threats have been made by none other than the members of legislative assemblies (MLAs), members of Parliament (MPs) and even ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

These statements comes at a time when Rahul Gandhi has stormed back into Parliament after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and is on the anvil of his campaign for the impending assembly elections in several states.

Strangely, the State and the police have taken no action yet on what are extremely serious offences under our penal code. Instead, complaints had to be made to the police by Indian National Congress functionaries against those making threats to the life of the LoP Rahul Gandhi.

In any legitimate democracy anywhere in the world, the LOP has a singularly important and unique position. He is more than a constitutional functionary. He heads the opposition in Parliament. We adopted in substantial measure the British Parliamentary system. In the words of the constitutional scholar Ivor Jennings "if there is no opposition, there is no democracy".

It was for this very reason that Z.H. Lari, a member of the Constituent Assembly, in May 1949 stressed on the importance of the (LoP) because "it is necessary to promote parliamentary opposition which along with the rule of law and a strong press constitutes the bulwark of democracy".

The LoP is the alter ego of the Indian citizenry. He questions the government and demands on behalf of the people of India for their fair share of legitimate and accountable governance.

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The LoP is constitutionally recognised by the Speaker in Parliament. A Parliament Act of 1977 provides for his salary and his allowances. It cannot be disputed that the LoP is an important position in Indian democracy and his protection is paramount.

The history, lest we forget the two assassinations

"History," as the American Journalist Norman Cousin said, "is a vast early warning system." We need to understand the past for it has implications for our current situation.

Three decades ago, on October 31, 1984, India's sitting Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov. She walked past the wicker gate of her 1 Safdarjung residence at about 9:20 a.m.

Her guards, Satwant and Beant Singh, who were on duty, suddenly opened fire. Beant fired three rounds into her abdomen from his .38 revolver.

Then Satwant fired 30 rounds from his submachine gun after she had fallen to the ground. She was pronounced dead on her arrival at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

It was in the tragic backdrop of the assassination of Indira Gandhi that the Special Protection Group (SPG) was conceived and made operational in April 1995. It was designed to protect existing and former Prime Ministers. Yet, this SPG protection was removed for the security detail of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and six years and five months later another tragic assassination rocked the nation.

The removal of SPG cover to Rajiv Gandhi and its fatal consequences

It was the night of May 21, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi, India's former Prime Minister was on a campaign trail. He landed at the Madras airport and was driven down to Sriperumbudur to address an election rally.

Two hours later, Rajiv Gandhi got out of his white Ambassador car and began walking towards the dais. All the way, he was being garlanded by supporters, party workers and even school children.

At precisely 10:10 p.m., Thenumozhi Rajaratnam, also known as Dhanu, a Sri Lankan Tamil, stepped up and bent down to touch his feet while simultaneously detonating her RDX explosive laden belt. Along with Rajiv, 14 others, including the assassin, died in the explosion.

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The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was the second assassination of a member of the Nehru–Gandhi family and the third in India of a major leader. The other leader assassinated outside the family was the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

This tragedy was completely avoidable. When V.P. Singh's Janta Dal government came to power in 1989, in a bout of vicious politicking, they removed Rajiv Gandhi's SPG cover.

This was done despite B. Raman, an outstanding intelligence officer, having sent in his threat assessment report to Vinod Pandey, a powerful bureaucrat in the V.P .Singh regime.

In his report, B. Raman wrote that every time Rajiv Gandhi went to the South, he received warnings that the security should be on high alert to the possibility of attacks from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other Sri Lankan organisations.

The Congress Party had demanded reinstatement of SPG protection for the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But what followed was a vilification campaign and blatant calumny from the ruling quarters to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi by labelling his party's demands as seeking wanton privilege.

This sordid politics was played on the security of a former Prime Minister despite the recorded threat perception.

What B. Raman reported was subsequently corroborated by the findings of the Commission of Enquiry conducted by Justice Milap Chand Jain, who in his report stated, "There is evidence to show that during this period some of the most vital wireless messages were passed between the LTTE operatives based in Tamil Nadu and Jaffna. These messages, which were decoded later, are directly related to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi."

The conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi was, in fact, hatched in the jungles of Jaffna in Sri Lanka. Rajiv Gandhi, India's youngest Prime Minister, had brought about the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in 1987.

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The accord was to put an end the 11-year-old fratricidal conflict in which the minority Tamils suffered in the crossfire of the Sri Lankan State and the many Tamil terrorist outfits. The LTTE was displeased with Rajiv Gandhi's commitment to send in the Indian Peace Keeping Force if elected.

SPG cover given to former PMs and their families and Vajpayee

When Narasimha Rao came to power in 1991, to avoid further tragedies, the government amended the Special Protection Group Act, 1988 to provide security for former Prime Ministers and their immediate family for 10 years and even provided for continuing the SPG thereafter depending on the threat perception.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee continued to have the SPG after he demitted office in 2004 for 14 long years right through the Prime Ministership of Dr Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi. He remained protected till his death in 2018, befitting the stature of being India's former Prime Minister.

The strange amendment of SPG Act in 2019

After the passing away of former Prime Minister Vajpayee in August 2018, an amendment was carried out by way of the SPG Amendment Act 2019 by the National Democratic Alliance government. By this amendment, the SPG cover to former Prime Ministers and their immediate kin was reduced to five years. The SPG cover to the Gandhis was revoked.

The removal of the SPG cover to the widow of Rajiv Gandhi and her two children Rahul and Priyanka did not have legitimacy or moral justification. The security cover of the Gandhis was withdrawn on the claim of reduced threat perception. It sounded hollow then and it continues to sound hollow to this day.

State a continuing entity in mature democracies

Mature democracies see the State as a continuing entity. The security of high functionaries, including that of the LoP, is paramount. If democracy has to live, a robust opposition must exist. For otherwise, as Quintin Hogg observed, "It is not a long step from the absence of an organised opposition to a complete dictatorship."

The prevailing murderous threats and incitements to execute violence against the LoP make out a clear-cut case for reinstatement of the SPG cover to Rahul Gandhi and his family members.

This is the necessary first step. If we cannot protect the LoP and his family, it will seriously damage Indian democracy and threaten to distort our democratic discourse.