As India celebrates its 75th year of independence, the glaring fact of a dysfunctional parliament can no longer be ignored. If there is one democratic institution which is gasping for reform, it is the parliament whose functioning has been severely undermined in recent years. The recently concluded budget session witnessed its accelerated erosion. Parliament barely functioned during this session. The Union budget was passed without discussion. By most accounts, this has been the least productive session in the seven decades of India’s parliamentary history.
Parliament is an essential institution for Indian democracy. Legislatures the world over have been described as a “grand inquest of the nation” – a place where acts of the government are examined to ensure nothing is amiss. Jawaharlal Nehru often stressed this in the Indian context. The opposition was a minuscule minority in his time yet its voice was not only heard but was respected too, and it was believed that the opposition was integral to the smooth functioning of the parliamentary system. Jana Sangh leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee could criticise Nehru severely on several occasions, but could still be heard seriously.
Dominance cannot mean total control
The Indian political system has changed dramatically. Apart from a political turn to the Right, the executive is progressively more dominant which has reshaped institutional relationships between different organs of the government. But it is not just the strengthening of the executive that is constraining the functioning of parliament, it is majoritarian politics, which has adversely affected the efficacy and accountability of parliament.
A major reason for this is the shift from one-party dominance under the Congress to a multi-party one and now a one-party driven majoritarian system under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has fundamentally altered the rules of engagement in parliament and outside.
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The idea that the numerical majority in parliament should have the final say in determining its functioning invariably works to the detriment of democracy. Parliament democracy gains legitimacy through discussion and debate, but in a majoritarian system, numbers trump every other consideration. In other words, majoritarian politics has been contributing to its further erosion.
Lack of due process hurting democracy
The disregard for parliamentary processes and opposition has weakened the significance of parliament to the point of inconsequence. Disruption of the proceedings is now routine. The number of hours that the parliament sits and the volume of legislation passed have both seen a dramatic decline in recent times, as have debates and committee scrutiny.
According to the PRS Legislative Research data, the number of sitting days in the Lok Sabha reduced from an annual average of 121 days during 1952-70 to only 56 days in 2022. The decline is also evident from the astonishing speed in passing legislation. The Lok Sabha, on average, took less than 10 minutes to pass a law, and the Rajya Sabha less than half an hour in 2020. In September 2020, two important sets of laws – the farm laws and the labour codes – were passed without discussion despite protests by the opposition that the required voting procedure, as specified by the parliament’s own rules, had not been followed in the Rajya Sabha.
Among the other indicators of decline are the shrinking space for the opposition, an increasing recourse to ordinances which circumvents parliament, and the bypassing of the parliament on several important initiatives.
Bills have been passed in the midst of din and noise with no consideration for opposition concerns or protests. Even worse, some important bills have been passed by voice vote, and sometimes without a single MP speaking, other than the minister in charge of the bill.
A view of the Lok Sabha. Representative image. Photo: LSTV/PTI Photo
In addition to this, there is a significant decrease in the involvement of standing committees – the deliberative core of parliamentary work in legislative matters. The percentage of bills referred to parliamentary committees has drastically reduced from 71% in the 15th Lok Sabha (2009-14) to 27% in the 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19), and to only around 13% since 2019. Even the bill revoking Article 370 and creating two Union territories out of the state of Jammu and Kashmir did not go through a parliamentary committee (leave alone consulting the elected government).
Passing bills without debate or scrutiny reduces parliament to a clearance window for legislation. This effectively means parliament was neither fulfilling its function of deliberative lawmaking nor of holding the executive accountable. This is a clear sign that India’s parliamentary democracy has incontrovertibly changed with the rise of majoritarianism.
Is parliament still a check on the executive?
Parliament provides for the accountability of the executive to the legislature. But in India, the principle of the executive being responsible to the elected legislature has been vastly curtailed as the parliamentary debate over important policies has been frequently quashed. Opposition is generally not consulted by the government. There was no consultation, for instance, before announcing demonetisation or imposing a national lockdown with four-hour notice after the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown was never debated in parliament even as sessions were either cut short or adjourned.
Institutional mechanisms of parliament work on the basis of accepted parliamentary conventions and norms of collaboration and dialogue amongst members. However, the ruling party believes that because it is the dominant party with an overwhelming majority in parliament it can have its way all the time. Parliament is needed in this framework only for legislative enabling and quickly passing legislation or budget grants. The party’s huge majority means that legislative changes can be approved by a voice vote, and claim that they have been ‘approved’ by parliament.
Three things
Three things happened in this budget session that are a matter of paramount concern as it underlines a serious deterioration in the functioning of India’s parliamentary system.
First, it is the Treasury Benches that did not allow parliament to run and disrupted proceedings every day as part of a systematic plan to avoid discussion on the Adani affair and the politics-business nexus. Second, the partisan behaviour of presiding officers of both Houses of Parliament compromised the principles of democracy and fairness, and third, the disqualification of Lok Sabha member, Rahul Gandhi, and the rapid manner in which the process was executed within 24 hours of his conviction for defamation by a court in Surat. The last of these events is another big step in the direction of authoritarian rule possibly setting the stage for the targeting of other opposition leaders through similar or other means.
Rahul Gandhi holds up a photo of Narendra Modi in a private jet with Gautam Adani in the Lok Sabha, February 7, 2023. Photo: Screengrab via Sansad TV
These three unprecedented events do not augur well for our democracy. They are signposts of serious erosion.
The government was cornered by the opposition, but in the end, the government had its way, it has refused to address in parliament the controversies and allegations surrounding the misuse of state agencies to open up business opportunities for favoured businessmen and companies.
In fact, when opposition leaders had asked questions regarding this, their remarks were expunged from the records claiming that Gautam Adani’s meteoric rise and how it was facilitated by the state and his closeness to the Prime Minister should first be verified before being aired in the House.
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By removing the remarks from parliamentary records, it was assumed that people wouldn’t know that these questions were ever asked. This was a way of changing the agenda by providing a protective shield to the promotion of a controversial businessman. By disrupting parliament it appears that the government does not want the opposition to have a voice, or to speak at all — giving substance to the criticism about the attrition of democracy.
Adani, China and all that shall not be named
What resonated through the entire budget session was the government’s refusal to concede to the opposition’s demand for an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into Hindenburg Research’s report alleging Adani Group’s manipulation of the stock market and public policies on the plea that Rahul Gandhi must apologise for his criticism of Indian democracy in the UK, and he must do this outside parliament.
The government’s refusal to have a discussion on this matter just as it had earlier refused to discuss Chinese incursions into Ladakh had no good reason or justification. Parliament, as the country’s highest democratic forum, is expected to discuss such important issues but the government was unwilling to do so. It was not interested in discussion and debate inside or outside parliament. This weakens the parliament which was virtually under lockdown for a month from March 7 to April 6. A dysfunctional parliament will devitalise and destroy the foundations of our democracy
Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Distinguished Professor at Council for Social Development, New Delhi.
