New Delhi, 25 March 2002

The Siege Within

PARLIAMENT IS NOT ZERO HOUR

By Poonam I. Kaushish

A Trishul-wielding mob of 500 breaks through three police cordons, storms a Vidhan Sabha  and goes on a rampage. They beat up employees, barge into ministers’ rooms, pull down their name plates, throw out chairs and flower pots and wrench fire extinguishers off the wall. Punctuating every blow with “Jai Sri Ram” and “Atal Behari Zindabad”.

The action then shifts to New Delhi. With tempers running high another group of 500-odd people freely hurl charges at each other.  Yell blue murder. Intimidate each other. Prevent another from speaking. Two men nearly come to blows. Pandemonium, dharna, adjournment and hooliganism are their hallmark. An equally volatile situation.

Are these scenes from the latest Bollywood terror thriller, “16 December”? Gripping snippets from Satya or Shool? Tragically, “No”. They are live replays of the carnage at the Orissa Assembly on March 16 last and its rippling effect in Parliament.  Welcome to the harsh reality of the present day politics. Which has reduced the world’s biggest democracy to the world’s biggest joke.

Crucial weeks to debate and discuss economic issues were lost in acrimony on the Gujarat carnage and Ayodhya in the just-concluded first half of the budget session.  At the end of it all the BJP heaved a sigh of relief and tom-tommed its intentions. The Opposition led by the Congress glowed, in the aftermath of muscle flexing. Reflecting the abysmal depths to which politics has sunk in the country. All that transpired till date -- unabashed opportunism – will be remembered as the lowest denominator in Parliamentary democracy.

Is this going to be our basic approach to governance?  Is this the way we will run our democracy? Clearly, the time to mouth accusations and counter-accusations, justifications and platitudes is far gone. Instead, the rampage and subsequent carnage of the Orissa Assembly purportedly by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal activists are defining moments of how these temples of democracy have been desecrated and vandalized. If it is Orissa today it will be Parliament tomorrow. And the way things are going the day doesn’t seem to be far.

Home Minister Advani confessed that he was ashamed by the incident. Said he, “When Parliament was attacked I felt angry. The attack on the Orissa Assembly made me feel    ashamed.” Prime Minister Vajpayee at his dramatic best asserted “Agar ye nare bazi sach hai (Vajpayee Zindabad) to main marna pasand karoonga”.

But the moot point is: Who is to blame? Obviously our netagan. Why did they ignore the warning signals emitting from Manipur early last year. Recall, when MLA horse-trading was at its peak in Imphal, disgusted students burnt down portions of the State Assembly. What makes Orissa more heinous than Manipur?  Is it because the former was engineered reportedly by a faction of the Sangh Parivar, while the latter was creation of our decrepit polity?

Questionably, does the matter rest with punishment being meted out to the vandals? Or, affixing blame on intelligence failure? Is suspension of policemen for dereliction of duty enough? Should we join the Opposition tirade and mock Chief Minister Patnaik’s BJD for allying with the “communal” BJP? Aren’t we as a nation missing the wood for the trees? Don’t we know that criminal politicos rule the roost? That there is neither law nor order.

Why does Orissa 2002 hit the headlines while two earlier similar incidents in 1964 (attack on the Assembly building during the Students’ agitation) and 1978 (similar attacks during teachers’ strike) didn’t create a ripple, leave alone rock Parliament.

The answer to all these questions and many more lies in the devaluation of Parliament over the years. Tragically, the very  protectors of this high temple of Parliamentary democracy have become its denigrators and destroyers. Who cast the first stone is irrelevant. The onus lies on Parliamentarians of all hue and colour.  In their “collective wisdom”, all spewed sheer contempt on Parliament wittingly or unwittingly. Reducing the grand red sand stone building into an akhara, where politically-motivated bashing has become the order of the day and agenda, a luxury to be taken up only when the lung power is exhausted.

We take great pride in calling ourselves the World’s largest democracy. But all forget that parliamentary democracy provides for a civilized form of government. Encompassing discussion, debate and consensus. It is the duty of the Government to build up a consensus after consultation with the Opposition.

Alas, over the years with political compulsions dominating political discourse, discussions and debates have largely lost their meaning as the numbers game has become the sole criteria of successful Treasury Benches. The passing of the contentious  Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO)  Bill is a case in point.  Instead of trying to build a consensus the Government bulldozed the contentious legislation in the Lok Sabha in a short span of seven hours.

With defeat of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, the Government is due to hold today a joint session of Parliament for a smooth passage.  In the 50 years of parliamentary democracy, this would be the third time that the Government of the day has taken recourse to this measure. The first was in 1961, when Nehru summoned a joint session to accommodate honest differences of opinion on the Dowry Prohibition Bill. The Congress did not issue a party whip. And again in 1978, when Morarji Desai’s  Janata Government  wanted to scrap a centralized banking service commission set-up by Indira Gandhi on the lines of the UPSC.

True, there is in no harm in the government of the day calling for a joint session of Parliament to ensure passage of any legislation. But it is more an exception than a rule. The earlier two examples pale in comparison to the motives of the BJP-led NDA government in calling this joint session.  More so as it is the same party which had opposed Indira Gandhi’s draconian laws during the Emergency and later Narasimha Rao’s TADA for suppression of a person’s fundamental and constitutional rights.

Today it has become a prestige issue for the Government. Advani went so far as to assert that those who were opposed to POTO are with the terrorists. Given the present sharp schism between the Opposition and Government and its far-reaching implications for our civil liberties and constitutional rights. Wouldn’t it have been better for Vajpayee to follow the example set by Nehru and ask for a conscience vote.

The Government could have explored  two other options. One, send the Attorney General to the Lok Sabha to ally all apprehensions of misuse by the police. Two, constitute a joint select committee of both the Houses, which the Congress had suggested, to study the Bill threadbare.

Sadly not only POTO but most Bills are invariably rushed through, giving a go by to the proper parliamentary procedure.  True all go through the motions but do not adhere to the stipulated three stages for a thorough processing of the Bill. The first reading is done when the Minister concerned introduces it and explains its broad parameters and need to do so. Thereafter, the principle of the  Bill and its provisions are expected to be discussed generally during the second reading. At this stage, the  Bill can also be referred to a Select Joint Committee.

The third, final reading of the Bill is done when all clauses and schedules, if any, have been considered and voted upon by the House. The Minister can move that the Bill be passed. Old timers  recall the time when during discussion on a Bill there would be battles royal over placement of even a comma in the text of the Bill.  Thakur Das Bhargava, a district-level lawyer was famous for it during Nehru days.

In the past, the debate on the President’s address would take at least a week; today it takes merely a day! Worse, fate is meted out to financial issues, the fundamental requisite of a budget session. It took barely 14 hours to pass the vote on account. That too with many MPs absenting themselves during the debate. The Railway budget fared no better. Many members slept through the debate.

Much of the trouble in Parliament and the State Legislature stems from the desire of the Opposition to catch the headlines by raising “hot” issues. Members are today showing less and less interest in their main job: lawmaking (16 per cent). The maximum time is spent on other matters or unlisted issues, 50 per cent. What is more, the duration of Parliament sessions has slumped from an average of 200 days a year to 75. True, what is important is not the total length of time that Parliament meets, but the use to which it is put. But if the purpose is drowned by lung-power, what’s the use.

Alas, the much-touted code of conduct mooted in November last has more or less been given a quiet burial. True, MPs now think twice before rushing into the Well of the House. But the other provisions have been totally ignored. Our Right Honorables still interrupt proceedings, don’t heed directions of the Chair, sit on “dharna”et al. Unlike the practice followed in the House of Commons wherein if a member is named by the Speaker it amounts to a black mark. In India, our members consider it a matter of honour!

In sum, over the years with political compulsions dominating political discourse, our parliamentarians have been gripped by a “chalta hai” attitude. As the 13^th Lok Sabha continues to work, it is high time our MPs give serious thought to rectifying all the scandalous distortions that have been introduced in our democratic system and urgently work for a change. They need to honestly search their souls. For how long will they continue to mortgage their conscience to unabashed gimmickry and cheap emotion. They must desist from reducing the high temple of democracy to a joke. Parliament is not the zero hour! – INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)