New Delhi, April 23 -- The issue of women's reservation (33%) in the Indian parliament should have been a straightforward affair. The government says it wants it; the Opposition is all for it. Yet, what the nation got was not reservation for women but a bill that was designed to fail.

The ruling BJP has now gone on the offensive after the collapse of the bill, almost as if the entire purpose was to take the political discourse to a new level of confrontation and bitterness against the Opposition. This is the sorry state Indian democracy has reached in recent times. Led by the BJP, this is a culture that has fashioned politics in the image of a boxing ring in which the Opposition must be surprised, shocked and knocked out every step of th...