First, a no-confidence motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker and then a notice for impeaching the Chief Election Commissioner. Two back-to-back initiatives by the parliamentary Opposition need to be seen in the larger context of the health of democracy rather than with mere exasperation at the Opposition.

While incumbents are identified as the guilty, the issue needs to be situated as one that involves citizens’ trust in the institutions these incumbents run and the offices they hold. In this sense, both initiatives by the Opposition draw attention to a more serious condition: The inability of institutions to transcend personalities and incumbents; the inability of office-holders to imagine themselves as protectors of institutional boundaries beyond immediate political considerations; the unwillingness of rulers to establish a working relationship with the Opposition; and consequently, a worrying condition of a trust deficit that will have a long-term effect.

The issue is not merely about the present incumbents — they are far too small compared to the larger issue at stake. Democracies are predicated on a complex cusp of trust and suspicion. Citizens and watchdog institutions are supposed to hold all power-holders in healthy suspicion: You have power, and so I shall always suspect you lest you become too powerful or arbitrary. At the same time, this architecture of suspicion can work only on the presupposition that citizens trust institutions: I trust that institutions will function appropriately under pressure of suspicion and scrutiny.

Trust means that there is a generalised or diffuse belief that a) power-holders will exercise power with restraint, b) power will be exercised in an answerable manner and c)........

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