The Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro in his 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare suggests that 1599 was the most decisive year in the celebrated author’s life. In that year Shakespeare completed Henry V, and wrote Julius Caesar and As You Like It. Most lovers of Shakespeare hold that his plays transcend time and space, and are relevant for all ages. Shapiro argues that they make sense only in the political age Shakespeare lived and wrote in. It is well-nigh impossible to understand the England of the late 16th century without his insights.The year 1599 heralded the 40th year of Queen Elizabeth’s (I) reign. She had no heir who could succeed her to the English throne, the future seemed uncertain, and apprehensions of political instability and civil war swept the country. Shakespeare captured the political climate of fear and unrest in his play on the assassination of a popular and powerful ruler in another time and place – Rome. The play was Julius Caesar. Caesar was not the only character Shakespeare focussed on, he gave us a complex picture of different categories of emotions and motivations, best fleshed out in the characters of Cassius and Marcus Brutus.Many memorable phrases that Shakespeare crafted have become a part of our everyday language. One such phrase is: ‘Et Tu Brute? Then fall Caesar’. The words are immediately identified with treachery, comparable to the treachery practiced by Judas Iscariot, Jesus Christ’s favourite disciple who betrayed his master for thirty pieces of silver. But there was more to Brutus. He did not kill his friend for monetary considerations. He feared that a man who had garnered such love and so much admiration tended to arrogance, and that arrogance breeds insensitivity and intolerance. Caesar would one day stride Rome like a giant. The Republic would be taken over by a tyrant. The thought troubled him.In the opening section of the play Shakespeare introduces us to Brutus, wracked by doubt and torn between loyalty to his friend and love for his country. He refers to himself as “poor Brutus, with himself at war”. A little later we know what precisely troubles Brutus when he says: “I do fear, the people choose Caesar for their king.” By the time of the assassination, Brutus decides: “If then (any) friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, then my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more.” After the assassination Rome is swamped in civil war, Brutus commits suicide, and the victor Mark Antony commands that he should be buried with honour. Brutus had chosen his country over loyalty to his friend.Also read: India’s COVID-19 Crisis Isn’t Just Modi’s Fault. It’s Ours, Too.Till today in many parts of the world, once popular leaders are dislodged from their thrones through violence and civil war. Democratic theorists fear precisely this. There must be a way of transferring power from one set of elites to another without violence. They found the answer in elections. This route is sufficient but not enough. A party might come to power and nurture tyrants. Power must be regulated through procedures, and checks and balances.A winning party forms the government and others sit in the opposition benches. But they do not sit in idleness twiddling their thumbs. Nor are they expected to act as cheerleaders of the government. The opposition has an onerous task at hand – that of constant scrutiny of government policy, holding ministers responsible, and on occasions voting out the executive and constituting a new government. The only weapon they have is debate.Parliament is not only a law-making body, it is a deliberative forum where informed debates are conducted according to norms of civility and propriety. Or so we expect.Parliament House. Photo: PTI/Manvender VashistThe norm of mutual respect and civility follows the basic principle of parliamentary government: that members of parliament [should] recognise each other as equals, even if some of them are in power and others are not. MPs are accorded respect because they have been elected to the seat of power by the people, and because they represent the interests of their constituents.The phrase ‘the people’ is of course a political not a demographic category. The ‘people’ are repositories of popular sovereignty. This entitles their representatives to respect. There are other constraints on the exercise of brute power. Parliament is, however, the theatre of democracy. It is the space where the holders of powers are called out, often dramatically, to account for their actions or their inaction. In a significant sense power is divided between those who exercise it and those who demand accountability. The principle of accountability trims the wings of demagogues who can, with ease, bend audiences to their will.On 25 November 1949, a day before the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar cautioned against this very contingency. Citizens of independent India, he said have to guard their democracy against rulers. People are grateful to great men who have rendered life-long service to the country. But even gratitude has its limits. Indians must forbear from worshipping men they consider to be heroes.‘[I]n India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.’ Ambedkar knew his history. Heroes are predisposed to vanity, insensitivity and consequently authoritarianism exactly as Julius Caesar was. But confronted by a vigilant opposition in legislative forums, and by an equally vigilant civil society outside these forums, our heroes can disintegrate.Also read: How Bengali Civil Society Stood up Against the BJPWise heads of an elected government take care to dodge such situations through quick and witty responses. These responses acknowledge the right of the speaker to criticise the government, but also manage to deflect such criticism or accept it gracefully. Jawaharlal Nehru’s response to Ram Manohar Lohia’s comment that the prime minister’s grandfather was a chaprasi in the Mughal court, has become famous. He smiled and said: “I am glad the honourable member has at last accepted what I have been trying to tell him for so many years. That I am a man of the people.”Another exchange between the socialist leader and the first prime minister of independent India is known as the ‘teen anna and pandrah anna’ debate. In his very first speech in parliament, Lohia alleged that the sum of Rs 2,500 spent on Nehru’s security every month was in stark contrast to the living standards of 27 crore Indians who lived on 3 annas a day. Nehru quoted statistics from the Planning Commission reports that the daily average income was more like 15 annas a day. Lohia demolished this argument brick by brick. Other members gave up their allotted time to speak and listened. Nehru accepted criticism with grace.Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, known for his oratory and political wisdom, was committed to the sanctity of parliament. On June 1, 1996, his government fell after 13 days in power. He said to the opposition party: “You want to run the country. It’s a very good thing. Our congratulations are with you. We will be completely involved in the service of our country. We bow down to the strength of the majority. We assure you that till the time the work that we started with our bare hands in national interest is not completed, we shall not rest. Respected speaker, I am going to the president to tender my resignation.” This is grace and dignity.Supporters of India’s ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a public rally at Bhaat village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India October 16, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Amit DaveThe New IndiaToday India’s parliament is less known for civil exchanges, and better known for banality, deliberate barbs and cultivated incivility. The quality of political discourse in the country has sunk to a new low. The moment even mild criticism emanates from an investigative journalist, a political satirist, a poet, a dramatist, an author, a scholar or from opposition leaders, cabinet ministers line up to demolish the messenger of perhaps an important message.Also read: India Is No Longer a Democracy but an ‘Electoral Autocracy’: Swedish InstituteThey forget that it is the job of the opposition to criticise government policy or the lack thereof. They subject colleagues to a barrage of vitriolic attacks. One would have thought men and women handling important portfolios would have enough on their plate. It appears that their main job is to attack even informed opposition. Recollect the way the suggestions of the learned Manmohan Singh on how to manage the pandemic was treated by the minister for health. Abusive language, ridicule and epithets are ritually and regularly hurled at Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee – an elected chief minister. Recently, two leaders of the Congress were hauled over the coals for allegedly designing a ‘toolkit’ – which the party termed as ‘forgery’ and ‘fraud’.By a clever sleight of hand, the government in power is identified with the nation. The power elite forgets that governments come and go, the nation remains, sometimes imagined, sometimes reimagined. Impropriety is not only unprecedented, it is violative of the basic spirit of parliamentary democracy – that of mutual respect. And when we last looked, India was still a parliamentary democracy at least in theory, if not in practice.Beyond the institutionalisation of curbs on the propensity of elected governments to accumulate and exercise power, often in ignoble ways, lies a profound theory of knowledge. No ruler, howsoever democratically she or he may have been elected, possesses enough knowledge to run a country as complex as India. For knowledge is necessarily incomplete. No one can know, M.K. Gandhi was to suggest, what the truth [or knowledge] is. I, he wrote, have been striving to serve the truth and have the courage to jump from the Himalayas for its sake. ‘At the same time I know I am still very far from that truth. As I advance towards it, I perceive my weakness ever more clearly and the knowledge makes me humble’.The passage holds significant implications. If persons have the capacity to know the truth, but not the entire truth, then no one person/group can claim superiority over another. They cannot say that their truth is the ultimate truth; other truths are false. No one can afford to be arrogant; all of us are flawed. We can only arrive at the truth through dialogue with others, even with those who may be our sternest critics.Dialogue is of course a process not statis. We do not expect it to conclude in agreement. There are no final agreements in politics, for politics is chancy, contingent and unpredictable. Also chancy and contingent is the elusive quality we call popularity. Greatly admired leaders may have feet of clay. They should be wary of what the philosopher Boethius called ‘the wheel of fortune’. It throws people up into the air, and brings them crashing down. Fortune is notoriously fickle. For as Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It – ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.’Neera Chandhoke was a professor of political science at Delhi University.