On Revitalizing Parliamentary Democracy

Parliamentary democracy was adopted in India after a purposive and elaborate debate among the founding fathers of India’s constitution. The members of the constituent assembly adopted the constitution with the conviction that it best suited to the heterogeneous character of Indian society, while the world expressed scepticism about India’s ability to operate a democratic system successfully 1.

Parliament has three important functions-to make laws, to be a forum for deliberations on important issues of governance and to enforce accountability of the executive to the people. Constitutional authorities such as Sir William Black Stone consider the law-making powers of the Parliament as the true index of Parliamentary sovereignty. Further, he says that the Parliament has “Sovereign and uncontrollable authority in making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations, ecclesiastical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal”2.

Indian Parliament, in the early years, discharged its function of charting out the path of social engineering with the utmost sense of responsibility, in the process of earning the admiration and respect of the people3. Healthy Debate, discussions, more number of sittings, spending more time for legislative business are considered as key features of Parliamentary democracy is now being overshadowed by uproar, chaos, conflicts and forced adjournments even for unimportant reasons and issues. Further, in the history of the Indian Parliament that a Parliament session was abandoned, the monsoon session of the Parliament in 2008, or frozen for reasons that are unclear.

Many MPs don’t attend the house for days together; the clever ones sign the attendance registered and slip out, ensuring that they don’t miss out on their daily allowance even if they miss crucial debates. Many others feel the prick of consciousness and turn up in the house and do nothing: In the present 14th Lok Sabha 32 MPs are still observing a vow of silence, waiting to participate in their maiden debate; 37 MPs are yet to table a question. Many more take their seats in the august house just to add to the decibel levels without contributing in any way to debates or discussions. There was general opinion that government, opposition and other political parties are not giving due importance to Parliament.

There has been a trend of decline in terms of the number and duration of sittings of Parliament after the period of the first Lok Sabha during 1952-1957. This trend of deterioration has been not only in terms of sittings or ‘hours of labour’ but also the quality and length of the debates and the legislative outcomes. There were 677 sittings (3,784 hours) during the first Lok Sabha (1952-57). This is the highest recorded count of the number of sittings of the House of the People. The Rajya Sabha, meanwhile, had 565 sittings during 1952-57. During the period 1971-1977 (when Parliament had its tenure extended by a year), the Lok Sabha had 613 sittings (4,071 hours).

This, however, cannot be considered to have been a positive trend, as it included the period of the Emergency. The average number of sittings of the Lok Sabha during 1952-1957 was 135 days a year. In 1956, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha sat for 151 and 113 days respectively. This is the highest number of sittings of Parliament till today. In 2006, Parliament sat for 77 days. In 2007, however, this declined in the Lok Sabha to 66 days, marking the lowest number of days in the last few years with the exception of 2004, which was an election year.

In 2008 Parliament sat for only 46 days. This trend is disheartening, and will inevitably erode public trust over the institution. There is a long-pending proposal that the minimum number of days of sitting for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha be fixed as 120 and 100 respectively, so as to ensure that Parliament is able to transact its business and carry forward its responsibilities in an optimal manner3.

The recently concluded second part of the 14th session of the 14th Lok Sabha witnessed a loss of nearly 21 hours in interruptions and adjournments. But Parliament adopted a resolution unanimously condemning the heinous attack in Mumbai by terrorists4. It is significant to note that during this session total of eight bills were passed in Lok Sabha in just over 15 minutes. These included five bills in the revised list of business and four under the supplementary agenda circulated later5. Some of the bills rejected by the Standing Committee were also passed in the Parliament. Similarly Rajya Sabha had also passed 3 bills in about 20 minutes, without any proper discussions in the Parliament. Lok Sabha had no time to discuss the bills because it met 46 days only, the lowest in the history of the Parliamentary democracy and a far cry from the norm of having atleast 100 sittings6.

The quality of debate is linked to the quality of MPs, says constitution expert Subash Kashyap. In the first Lok Sabha, lawyers and barristers formed the largest professional group members, this automatically ensured speakers of a certain quality such as Jawaharlal Nehru and N C Chatterjee (father of present Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee) to name a couple. In one such debate, he recalls, there was much hair-splitting over which word-incite or provoke-should be used for a particular legislation.

In the 1950s, even bitterly contested issues never degenerated into abuse leading to chaos. MPs saw one another as political rivals, not enemies. In those days several lesser-known MPs specialized in a particular topic and were heard with seriousness. For instance, Uma Charan Pattnaik, an independent MP from Orissa’s Ganjam constituency in the first two Lok Sabha elections, “He was an expert on defence matters. When he spoke there was pin-drop silence,”.

Experts say the quality of debate declined after the third Lok Sabha. The process of democratization has created a new crop of leaders whose intellectual and political capabilities are below par. “They prefer to shout than debate”, as pointed out by political scientist Imtiaz Ahmed. Besides, as a 2004 study by Bangalore-based independent watchdog Public Affairs Centre show, 23.2% of those elected to Parliament face criminal charges ranging from murder to extortion and rape. Such MPs are unlikely to be good debaters7.

It is worthwhile to note that, according to India Today report8, published recently, some 32 MPs, so far, never participated in any debate in the Parliament, which includes senior most members also. While debating the issues such as poverty and hunger in Parliament, especially the House of People, the attendance was very low. On May 5, 2007 only six members were present, initially, in the House of People, which discussed the eradication of hunger in India. The attendance was less than one per cent. Later six more members joined in the discussion. Totally 12 members attended the discussion, of which 7 belongs to Congress, 2 from Left parties, and one each from BJP, BJDand TDP12. Similarly, in the month of December 2007 the on going National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme was discussed in the Lok Sabha, and this time the attendance was 16 only. Because of lack of quorum the speaker adjourned the house.

It is significant as well as worthwhile to mention here that, in the 2007 Global Hunger Index (GHI) out of 118 countries list, India placed in a dismantle position of 94th rank- behind Ethiopia. Ethiopia worked better at reducing hunger than India did. Pakistan ranks ahead of India, too, at 88. China logs in at 47. All our South Asian neighbours do better than India on this index, except Bangladesh. None of these countries boasts an economy growing at 9 per cent a year. When the sensex fall of several hundred points the Finance Minister comes forward and soothes the market nerves. But no one, the representatives, came forward or reacted to calm the nation when India hit the 94th rank in the GHI9.

Everybody accepted the fact that the Parliament has not been functioning up to the expectations of the people and the people have also gradually loosing their faith over the system as well as Parliamentary democracy. The following are some of the facts about how the Parliament worked in the last year, 2008:

1. Union government spent Rs.440 Cr. for conducting business of the Parliament.

2. Rs.23,083 being spent for conducting one minute of the business of the Parliament.

3. Parliament met only 46 days in the year 2008, which is lowest in the history of the Parliamentary democracy .

4. Speaker and Prime Minister speech were also disturbed.

5. Speaker left Lok Sabha in a huff because of unable to maintain the order of the house.

6. Prime Minister was not allowed to introduce his Council of Ministers.

7. 32 MPs, so far, never raised any issues or participated in any debate in the Parliament.

8. 37 MPs never submitted any kind of questions, in Question Hour or Zero Hour, in the Parliament.

9. Lok Sabha passed, in December 2008, 8 bills in 17 minutes without any proper debate.

10. Rajya Sabha had also passed 3 bills in 20 minutes.

11. Bill rejected by the Standing Committee of the Parliament was also passed.

Quality of debate and discussions are the hall mark of Parliamentary Democracy seems to be unavailable at present. Everyone agrees there’s a need for more informed debate in Parliament. Imtiaz Ahmad suggested that rookie MPs should schooled in the art of parliamentary affairs. A short course can help10. Strict enforcement of Code of Conduct for MPs, electing representatives with some professional background or formal education, are essential for proper working of Parliament in India. More than any measures sense of commitments from: i) people representatives, ii) leaders of all the political parties will make the Parliament to work more meaningfully and purposefully.

Reference:

1. Somnath Chatterjee, “Six Decades of Parliamentary Democracy”, The Hindu, August 15, 2007.p.4.

2. P.C.Alexander, “Raising a Question on Question Hour”, Deccan Chronical, May 20, 2008.p.6.

3. India Today, Jan. 19, 2009.p.65; Vinod Bhanu, “Abandoning a Parliament Session”, The Hindu, Sep.13, 2008.p.12.

4. The Hindu, Dec. 24, 2008.p.12.

5. The Hindu, Dec. 24, 2008.p.13.

6. Times of India, Dec. 28, 2008.p.8.

7. Avijit Ghosh, “Where’s the debate in this din of democracy?”, Times of India, Dec. 28, 2008.p.8.

8. India Today, Jan.21, 2009.p.18.

9. P.Sakthivel, “Indian Parliamentary Democracy in Turmoil”, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol.LXIX, No.3. July-Sep. 2008.pp.519-529.

10. Times of India, Dec. 28, 2008.p.8.