India, Dec. 7 -- On the opening day of the current Winter Session, India's newly elected Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman, Shri C.P. Radhakrishnan, walked into the chambers to take the chair. The air was thick with ceremony-and, quietly, with suspicion. Opposition leaders used the occasion not simply to extend courtesy, but to issue premature warnings about "impartiality," signalling in effect that the moment the Chair begins its duty, its every action will be viewed through a lens of partisan mistrust. Media headlines echoed the sentiment: the Opposition insisted that Shri Radhakrishnan needed to "maintain neutrality," implicitly suggesting they would treat any enforcement of procedure with scepticism.

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