Goodbye to Debate - (Hamarashehar.Com, 15/03/2002)

-- By Dasu Krishnamoorty

It is unusual for the Supreme Court to administer a mild but direct reproof to Parliament, the supreme law-making body, which on several occasions questioned the jurisdiction of the APEX court in matters relating to legislatures. The court was hearing a petition of the government seeking court indulgence in permitting limited worship by kar sevaks at Ayodhya when the counsel for certain Muslim organisations began airing their points of view. The court reprimanded the counsel, saying, "this is not Parliament, where one could go to the well of the House and raise the voice. Counsel would be given full opportunity at the next hearing," the Bench said. Whether this remark will go unchallenged in the acrimony that has gripped Parliament or evoke a response remains to be seen.

Jurisdictional niceties apart, members of Parliament invited this embarrassment on themselves because the Opposition parties forced both houses to adjourn for the last two days following obstructionist tactics by their colleagues. As usual, the Opposition raked up minority issues, holding the House to ransom. The Times of India editorially commented: "This is hardly surprising considering that our parliamentarians have rarely shown a calibre that goes beyond stalling proceedings, storming the well of the House and passing the buck. Needless to say, this environment cannot foster either a worthwhile debate or constructive self-introspection." These stand-offs have become so common that normal business in Parliament has become uncommon. The Opposition, which includes veterans like Somnath Chatterjee, must realise the consequences of such expensive skirmishes. It is sad that the Marxist leader is seen in the company of such belligerent members as Mulayam Singh Yadav.

These frequent inroads into parliamentary decorum destroy the very purpose of the August House, which is a forum for debate and not combat. It is not that in his time Jawaharlal Nehru's presence in Parliament overawed the Opposition into meek consent for every treasury proposal. There were very frequent exchanges between him and giants like Ram Manohar Lohia, Shyam Prasad Mukherjee and H.V. Kamath, informed by learning, wit and repartee. The debate never touched the level of the street discourse.

The repeated disruption of legislative business to accommodate unproductive agenda suggests a serious bankruptcy of issues and obsessive enthusiasm for divisive debate, which is continued outside Parliament's granite structures by forces indifferent to the country's interests. The borders are alive with confrontation and militancy, calling for accentuated defence effort and spending. Opposition performance such as the one Parliament has been witness to can only lead to a state where the government will have to exclusively get busy with the task of neutralising the mischief that they stage inside the House. The issues that these MPs are raising to block parliamentary debate have never figured at the time of electioneering where votes were sought to alleviate poverty, illiteracy, and backwardness. However, the Opposition has never shown the same enthusiasm to raise these issues and confront the government?

It is the same story of demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, session after session and riot after riot. There are no niceties. No nuances. The government has a majority and so will not budge. The Opposition has lung and muscle power and so will not sit quiet. The losers are the hundreds of millions of people, including the minorities whose living conditions have never improved despite such demonstrative and raucous demands for a Masjid. There is little doubt about who are stoking the fires of communalism. It is not the mobs but politicians whose sole objective is to forge constituencies of voters based on communal discord. They have succeeded in doing it, as evident from the earlier successes of the BJP and the present victories of the non-BJP parties. Both have thrived on divisive politics.

The level of communal conflict has never come down despite such show of tactical concern for the minorities. As long as the Opposition parties create a feeling of insecurity in the minds of the religious minorities, only to win electoral sympathy and support, the communal divide is bound to persist. The urgent need is for a détente between the warring communities, which is an impossible task given the stake of the political parties in converting their constituencies into insular ghettos. For a decade now, especially after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Parliament has been compelled to adjourn discussion on every other life and death issue. Last year, the country lost nearly Rs 10 crores, thanks to the walkouts, dharnas, and invasions of the Speaker's well by people's representatives. Both houses lost roughly 104 hours during that budget session between 23 February and 17 May. Every day of Parliament activity costs the treasury Rs 58.25 lakhs or Rs 7.7 lakhs every hour.

The war of political attrition between the government and the Opposition is taking an extremely heavy toll of precious parlimentary time and the consequences of such performance for the nation are difficult to quantify or evaluate. The railway budget was passed in the Lok Sabha last year without a word said on either side of the issue, heralding a bizarre chapter in Parliament’s history. What is visible without effort is the erosion of the dignity of the House and the office of the Speaker, indicating that the time has come to determine who is responsible to whom for obstructing business in both houses and physically preventing a debate. People are left wondering if they have made the correct electoral choices. As the symbol of a free and democratic society, Parliament has suffered a setback and ceased to be the institutionalised voice of the people to articulate their demands, to express views on the performance of the government and to demand explanation for its failures and inadequacies. More importantly, the two houses are prevented from discharging their basic function of making laws for the empowerment of the people.

If these tactics of the Opposition come in the way of a full discussion of the budget, emblematic of the government’s accountability to people and Parliament, that will be a sad day. If discussion on that document is frustrated or foiled through unparliamentary methods, it amounts to denying the people the opportunity to know how public funds have been spent and for what purpose. A guillotine is a gag on the voice of the people and renders unnecessary the expensive exercise of holding elections. Far-reaching amendments to legislation such as altering labour laws, making retrenchment easy, will be rushed through without meaningful discourse. In one sense, the Opposition is providing an opportunity to the government to skirt a debate on crucial issues.

Because of lack of time, most of which is taken away by noisy scenes, Parliament is forced to abridge its sittings and cut down the time in examining the budgetary demands of a majority of ministries and departments without the semblance of a discussion. This has been happening repeatedly and consistently after the Opposition has invented these new unparliamentary instruments of negation. Neither the question hour nor the call attention motion can be a satisfactory substitute for the extensive debates on departmental budgetary demands nor can they provide the Opposition an opportunity to call the government to account for its policies. Parliament is the most powerful agency to ensure transparency in governance. If MPs are anxious to earn an extra term in Parliament, they can do so only by espousing the cause of the people and not by pursuing irrelevant and exclusivist agendas.

Discourse as a democratic institution is now in jeopardy. The Congress, with a history of parliamentary rectitude, must delink itself from unruly and anti-secular elements and fight its battles with the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) in the same dignified tradition of the Opposition of the Nehru era. The victories it has won recently should help it to overcome political frustration, which is the main cause of the kind of rowdy scenes Parliament has seen.