Competitive hooliganism disrupting House
By Kalyani Shankar
President Pranab Mukherjee, while addressing the joint session of Parliament in February this year rightly emphasised the responsibility of lawmakers observing, “As I speak to you, I am aware that an aspirational India is emerging, an India that demands more opportunities, greater choices, better infrastructure, and enhanced safety and security.” He was not wrong in referring to the aspirational India consisting of a young population, which is becoming more demanding. But a Parliament watcher may be dismayed at the non-functioning of Parliament for some time now. India’s Parliament has been frequently disrupted in recent sessions over contentious political issues, leaving a huge backlog of legislation that many consider crucial to India’s development.
The Parliamentary decorum and etiquette have been codified over the years and members are expected to keep up the conventions. The Parliament even approved of a 60-point code of conduct for the members in 2001. Despite all these a smooth session remains a distant dream, the unbecoming example of which was set by repeated adjustments of both houses without transacting business and at the end of the session bills are passed without even discussions.
The public expects their representatives to engage in debates, raise issues of public concerns and resolve problems besides acting as a watchdog to check the government. But what is happening is a non-functioning of Parliament and as the vice-president Hamid Ansari described “competitive hooliganism.” His suggestion to suspend the rules to suspend unruly members was rejected by the political parties this week. The opposition claims it is the responsibility of the government to run the house while the government expects the opposition not to be obstructive. Isn’t it time for the members to correct their image and for the political parties to show that they care for the people?
The first half of the budget session this year was marred by protests over issues like the situation of Sri Lankan Tamils, and comments of Congress Minister Beni Prasad Verma against Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The disruptions resulted in lesser time for transacting business and the Rajya Sabha passed the appropriation bill, which is a finance bill, without a debate. The second half of the budget session, which began this week, is quite disappointing. Day one of the winter session started in the same way that the last session ended as the opposition parties protested over various contentious issues. On Tuesday, the Lok Sabha was a free for all, as each of these parties demanded adjournment on various things from a separate Telengana to stringent action against the child rape in Delhi. The BJP is in no mood to allow the house to function and is demanding for the head of both the Prime Minister and the law minister Ashwani Kumar, who is alleged to have vetted the CBI report on the coal scam.
With hardly eight working days left it is a sad state of affairs that the lawmakers are not concerned about their main job of enacting laws and scrutinising the budget? Important financial business is before the House. There are also important Bills like the Food Security Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill, which require to be passed. The opposition and the government should find a way to resolve the logjam and ensure smooth functioning of both the houses.
The productive time of the current Lok Sabha is just about 70 per cent while that of Rajya Sabha is even less.
Look at the track record of Parliament! Lok Sabha met for an average of 127 days in the 1950s and Rajya Sabha for 93 days. This has decreased to 73 days for both Houses in 2011. The 1st Lok Sabha passed an average of 72 Bills each year. This has decreased to 40 Bills a year in the 15th Lok Sabha.
This deterioration is despite the awakening in recent years about the decline of Parliament, devaluation of parliamentary authority, falling standards of debate, deterioration in the quality and conduct of its members. Some new members, who had come with high expectations, were not even able to make their maiden speech. The positive aspect is that Parliament today is more representative in character than it was in 1952, which was more elitist. It is evident that the members have not been able to perform their two basic duties of scrutinising the budget and making of the law well.[IPA]