Newspaper readers, TV viewers and even journalists over a generation have grown accustomed to witnessing Parliament as a place for political battles rather than a forum to discuss issues and make laws for national progress. Though the government-opposition confrontation is an inevitable feature in a democracy that the country is used to since independence, frequent adjournments amid chaotic scenes began in the mid-1980s. This has continued through to the new millennium.
A generation of reporters has come and gone without knowing what it is like to report Parliament and its function as a legislating and debating body. It is pretty much the case with MPs of the last two decades or so. Even ministers have come and gone without ever facing Parliament in any substantial manner. Nor have they had their performance properly scrutinised by the opposition or the public. Many a young reporter is known to have ‘covered' Parliament without filing any substantive copy on its legislative work.
BATTLEGROUND
In a scandal of sorts, the winter session of 2010 ended as a virtual washout due to the Opposition protest over the 2-G scandal.
The current winter session did not do any business in the first two weeks again on account of Opposition protest over several issues. The government paid a price to buy peace — it put on hold its decision to open FDI in multi-brand retail to the extent of 51 per cent. Though it was an executive decision and did not require the approval of Parliament, the politics surrounding economic reforms and coalition constraints have forced the government to go back on its decision, at least for the time being.
According to Jay Panda, a young parliamentarian of promise from Biju Janata Dal, the root of the problem is that the polity has become much more federal. For nearly 20 years, the country has been having coalition governments with a great deal of regional assertion, but parliamentary rules don't reflect that. The rules go back to pre-independence times. “Unless we sort out the rules, there will always be these clashes and noise,” says Panda.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley puts the issue in perspective: “As far as disturbances in Parliament go, my own preference is strongly in favour of a debate. Parliamentary obstructionism can be a part of parliamentary tactics but I admit it should be used in the rarest of rare cases. I think this tendency of too much obstructionism arises when there is a breakdown of consultation between government and opposition groups, or when a crucial debate isn't being allowed.”
The truth is that Jaitley's views could well have justifiably come from a Congress member at the time of the NDA government before 2004. Both the Congress and BJP, the two major political forces, have been guilty of turning Parliament into a battleground to win political points over each other.
DISAGREEMENT
While the financial cost of running Parliament is considerable, no less is the intellectual cost. Countless man hours go into the entire gamut of conducting a day's session. The staff of ministries and departments pore over members' questions to prepare the answers. Members themselves and their supporting staff spend enormous time to prepare questions, special mentions, notices of calling attention motions, private member's Bills and various other parliamentary devices to elicit vital information from the Government, on behalf of the people they represent. All this stupendous effort comes to a naught when the House stands adjourned without transacting any business. Members are often frustrated when their starred questions that are to be answered by ministers on the floor of the House go for a toss because of adjournment.
During the years, there have been informal ‘agreements' to let the Question Hour function whatever be the provocation for protest. A similar ‘agreement' envisaged that any member rushing to the ‘Well' of the House be suspended for the rest of the day. Yet another was ‘no work, no pay' norm. All these have remained only as ‘agreements' sans implementation.
Wasting Parliament time is a crime against democracy, a crime against the people, the teeming millions who, braving sun and rain, heat and cold stand in serpentine queues to vote to elect their representatives.
PASSING BILLS
The media has also failed to effectively mobilise public opinion to force the government and the opposition to ensure that Parliament functions in a normal manner. It seems to be happy with reporting ‘glamorous' stories of disorder. There is another side that goes unnoticed as the media tends to treat it as being unglamorous and really not newsworthy. We do have a number of serious-minded members who make thought-provoking and learned speeches on any given issue. There are experts from various fields too among members.
Speech by an authority on a subject matter, of any piece of important legislation, throws revealing light on the matter, leading to a better understanding of its significance and implications. In the past, we had members with such calibre. To cite a few, there were members like H V Kamath, Madhu Limaye, Minoo Masani, N G Ranga, Jyotirmoy Basu, P Ramamurthy, Bhupesh Gupta, Inderjit Gupta and others.
Today, since a lot of time is wasted each day, important Bills are rushed through at the eleventh hour without discussion. For the first time in India's Parliamentary history, the Finance Bill was passed without a word being spoken on it, in August 2004 during UPA-1. Passing Bills wholesale in the last few days of any session is a familiar feature today.
The just-concluded winter session passed far fewer Bills than were in the original agenda. And several Bills that have a bearing on reforms and faster economic growth continue to remain in cold storage.
The Lokpal Bill, seen as ‘The Bill' of the session, was scheduled for the last few days for discussion and passage.
Will the government and the Opposition come together during the few months before the budget session of 2012 to sort out matters so that Parliament returns to perform its primary function — to debate and legislate?
One hopes this doesn't remain a mere New Year wish.
(The writer is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist.)