Here is how a complicit urban elite has come to view the role of the political opposition in the houses of parliament: let opposition attend the Question Hour, and desist from demanding discussions on public issues, however grave, or seek to refer Bills to Committees.
The chief task of parliament they suggest is to facilitate government legislation with dispatch, raising no motions of any kind, including now even points of order, not to speak of motions of adjournment etc. to draw the attention of the Houses to matters that are inconvenient to the government, however urgent or far-reaching such issues may be for the common weal.
The wholly undemocratic and unconstitutional assumption that informs this cavalier stand is that that if the government has a clear majority, no questions must be asked of it pertaining to any aspect of functioning, be it parliamentary procedure, policy issue, matters involving likely mendacity or corruption, the style of institutional functioning in relation to various aspects of public and constitutional life.
In short, just as the media is expected to remain loyal to a self-declared supremo who alone must be regarded as emblem of the state, so also must elected representatives belonging to opposition parties, even if their numbers be nearly as large as of the treasury benches, and their spread nationwide, comply unquestioningly with the will of the government.
This ideological profile, it can be seen, defines a fascistic order more than a democratic one, elections notwithstanding.
John Stuart Mill, rightfully accorded the status of the most major theoretician of modern democracy, was to tell us that where even a lone dissenter goes unregarded, nations do not run democracy but autocracy.
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Responsible opposition
Leaving aside the complicit elite, ‘we the people ‘ define a ‘responsible opposition’ quite differently.
Those that wish smooth sailing for the government are sections for whom democracy remains at bottom a necessary evil, out of a need to defer to ’emancipated’ opinion – such as they at bottom do not share.
Once that fig-leaf of justification is achieved, through means fair or foul, it is expected that governments with majorities alone represent the people.
Even if the opposition have garnered a larger share of the popular vote, they are thought to have become redundant.
It is, however, the dispossessed masses who have the most stake in the electoral or democratic system.
Unlike the elite, not being plugged into echelons of elite influence or power, here, there, and everywhere, within the entrails of the state, their only recourse is to the women and men they elect to represent their needs and miseries.
To the extent that class-based, capitalist ‘democracies’ cater chiefly to the endowed and the invested, the masses have a very different notion of the role of ‘responsible’ oppositions, both within the precincts of parliament and out on the street.
For the vast masses, it is the democratic and constitutional duty of the political opposition to hold the government of the day accountable for the least of its transgressions.
This accountability then involves the use by the opposition of every parliamentary rule, procedure, institution, such as the Committee system, to bring to light the least of the government’s excesses, or deviations into authoritarian gumption or opaque denial of just queries and causes.
Indeed, the more intransigent the government and its officialdom, the more onus accrues on a ‘responsible’ opposition to thwart the totalitarian will of the government to ride roughshod over both parliament and the people who are its masters.
Needless to say, in recent years this principled equilibrium of the democratic or parliamentary system has gone for a toss, as wholesale breaches have come to be routine.
From a technically facilitated totalitarian procedure to block out opposition members from view, to presiding officers of the Houses almost without exception rubbishing opposition demands on matters of procedure or substance, parliament has come to be, as it were, a wretched routine for the government rather than an article of democratic faith.
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It is much to be hoped that the very substantial opposition that has now been elected by ‘we the people’, defying myriad allurements and unabashed use of clout by the powers-that-be, will return the role of the opposition to its fundamental responsibility to keep government on its toes from one day to another, thus resurrecting the true meaning of responsibility.
Indeed, the quiet watershed elections of 2024, having quashed imperial will, lordly lies, lumpen threats, in favour of hard livelihood concerns and the delivery of public accountability, and having lifted the pall of gloom and fear from the citizen’s head and heart, will now help the ‘responsible’ opposition to strive every nerve not to allow any slide back into electoral autocracy.
As to the media, it is already, happily, evidence that many channels no longer feel obliged to be single-faced propaganda tools.
Should the corporate media also pick up the courage and assume the duty to be on the side of ‘we the people’, they will not only share the credit for bringing back a credible parliamentary system on constitutional or ethical rails, but enhance their own standing in the comity of democratic nations.
Often charmed by American ways, they might also take a hard look at how American media function in relation to their own government.
And the presiding officers of the Houses of parliament might likewise study how the various Committees of the American Congress function to haul the wrong-doers over the democratic coals.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
