INDIA'S PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICES

As Lok Sabha is one of the two Houses, which make up Indian Parliament, without understanding the latter, the former cannot be understood in perspective.

Indian Parliament

The emergence of Indian Parliament was the greatest event in India's epoch since Independence. That explains the celebration of January 26 every year, as India's Republic Day. The first Republic Day was in 1950, when India became the world's largest democracy (in a numerical sense).That was the day the Constitution of India came into force.

If Parliament was thus a creation of the Constitution to uphold and honour its provisions and device mechanisms for speedy and efficient delivery systems, what one might ask is whether it has done so. From the perceptions of discerning citizens it has not done so. Before going into the details, some observations on Indian Constitution will be in order.

The Constitution

The Constitution was in the making long before India's independence, thanks to the untiring work of, among others, B.R. Ambedkar, one of the greatest intellectuals India ever had, that too from one of the most oppressed untouchable castes, who began his emancipation politics through democratic means as early as 1919. Elaborate and systematic work on framing the Constitution began as India was about to become independent. Framing the Constitution was the task of the Constituent Assembly (the immediate predecessor of Indian Parliament), and Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee and the chief architect of the Constitution.

The Constituent Assembly was in session for about three years until the Constitution was framed in its final shape then, and ratified by it. The members who comprised the Constituent Assembly were intellectuals and statesmen of the highest order. All the debates of fifty-five years or so in Indian Parliament pale before the Constituent Assembly Debates.

The Lok Sabha

In the initial years Parliament had high respectability, accountability, and serious concern for nation building. That was only to be expected, considering that those who represented Parliament then were drawn from the same team who framed the Constitution, and from among other leaders who fought for India's freedom. After Jawaharlal Nehru's term as Prime Minister (he died while in office), that is, a little over a decade after the Constitution came into force, Parliament began its downhill journey. There have been several reasons for this, which include the following:

Lack of statesmanship, democratic concerns and Constitutional morality among the elected leaders.

Single party dominance in Parliament for a long time enabled the party to bend and break democratic norms to suit party interests.

Rampant corruption, which rather than probing made Parliamentary Committees a millstone round Parliament's neck; for, as corruption and this single party were like Siamese twins, all probes were pretentious banalities.

Utter disrespect for Parliamentary and democratic norms by the elected members, and by the political parties, which fielded such candidates.

Dangerous nexus between corruption and criminality involving politicians, their hangers-on, bureaucrats, middlemen, fixers, and so on. [Germane to this observation is the assertion by former Prime Minister, V.P. Singh, that terrorism only kills people, whereas corruption ruins the nation.]

Rise of caste and communal politics, and use of caste and communal groups as vote-banks.

The rise of Procrustean Hindu communalism, which has had devastating effects on the whole nation.

The State

While Parliament is the apex Constitutional body of India, one cannot judge the nation merely in terms of Parliamentary procedures and practices. As all Parliamentary proceedings have to be executed by the Ministry in power, the Union Cabinet, Parliament can be judged only by the functioning of the State (read government). That raises the question whether India is a soft or hard State. It is neither. On the contrary, it is corrupt, communal, and irresponsible to the core, which should be a poor reflection on Parliament. The articulation of the perfidies of power through, among others, communalism as combination of all the three is a clear indication of this.

If India had a responsible Parliament and responsible Government, the RSS madness called silanyas, would not have taken place at the instance of Rajiv Gandhi, and the Sangh Parivar hoodlums would not have razed Babri Masjid to the ground. If India had a responsible Parliament and responsible Government history would not be repeating as tragedy as it happened during the BJP rule.

Parliament for some time regained semblance of credibility under the present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. This was mainly because of the support of the Left parties which are not as perfidious as other parties, and partly because the Lok Sabha managed to have a veteran and versatile parliamentarian, Somnath Chatterjee, as Speaker, from the Left, known for his unimpeachable integrity and democratic credentials; and partly because the Union Ministry managed to have a public intellectual, Manmohan Singh, as Prime Minister, known and widely respected for his probity and integrity.

However, among others, the ‘cash-for-question’ scandal of the MPs captured by TV channels recently has already caused a lot of damage to Indian Parliament. Though the expulsion of these MPs from Parliament was some damage-control, legal action should have been initiated against them. That has not happened. So, with CASH-FOR-QUESTION MPs disgracing Parliament and parliamentary practices, and the continuing chicanery and effrontery of India’s political buccaneers, the future of India’s parliamentary democracy is in the realm of wait and watch.

As India is about to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of its first war of independence [in 1857] it will do well to use the occasion to take stock of what India has achieved as a democracy since its Independence in 1947 and strengthen its parliamentary practices and democratic governance.

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