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New Delhi, 23 December 2003
Government Plays
Truant
PARLIAMENT STUCK IN
COLONIAL GROOVE
By Poonam I. Kaushish
New Delhi is suffering from an avoidable
hangover. While we commoners pop pills and coffee to recover, there is alas no
remedy for a democratic bastion. Which continues to reel under a stupor of
casualness, neglect and decay. You guessed right. It is Parliament once again.
Tragically, our Parliamentarians are still stuck in the old colonial groove.
Merry Christmas (sic). Just not interested in doing a spot of good honest work!
Like their counterparts at Westminster.
Nothing illustrates this better than the winter session of
Parliament. It will go down in history as the shortest session ever – a grand
total of 16 days, of which three were lost to lung power. All thanks to slavish
mentality – and Santa Claus. Winter sessions normally begin mid-November and
continue till about December 23. This year its opening was justifiably delayed
because of the Assembly polls which concluded on December 1. Thus Parliament
met on December 2.
Questionably, did it have to adjourn sine die prior to
Christmas on 23 December? What is sacrosanct about concluding the session
before December 25? Nothing except a hangover of our British past. True the
Central Assembly, as Parliament was called, ended its winter session under the
Raj latest by December 23 to enable the rulers to celebrate Christmas. But one
did not have to follow it slavishly. Succinctly quipped a leader: “Hum abhi bhi angrezi lakir ke fakir hain.”
By all means let us celebrate Christmas. But why adjourn
Parliament sine die on December 23. It could have adjourned for Yuletide that
day and met again thereafter to complete the pending agenda, cut short due to
the delayed start of the session. Worse, some of the important legislative
business, even constitutional amendments, were mindlessly rushed through as a
ritual.
Take the Constitution (97 Amendment) Bill banning defections
and limiting the size of the Council of Ministers at the Centre and in the
States. It was debated and adopted in no more than three hours. Barely 50
members were present in the Lok Sabha during the discussion. Even at the voting
stage, only 424 MPs out of 545 were present in the House and 167 of 242 in the
Rajya Sabha. Worse was the fate of the POTA Bill. The quorum bell had to be
rung time and again as MPs made merry in the Central Hall. A harassed
Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, was seen repeatedly pleading
with MPs to return to the House.
Not only that. Shockingly, the debate on both these Bills
even failed to meet the conventional parliamentary requirement of three
readings. The first reading is done when the Minister moves for the bill
consideration and explains its philosophy and its broad parameters. Thereafter,
the bill is thrashed out clause by clause in the second reading. The third,
final reading is done when all the clauses and schedules, if any, have been
considered and voted by the House and the Minister moves that the Bill be
passed. Veterans recall Nehru’s time when battles royal were fought during the
second reading even over the placement of comma!
Sadly, form not substance is now paramount. With political
compulsions dominating political discourse, discussion and debate has largely
lost its meaning. The numbers game has become the sole criteria of success.
Gone are the days when the sittings were orderly and members would ponder hard
and long before raising issues. When interventions were meticulous and
clarifications were sought. But all this largely ended with Nehru. Then came
the shouting brigade, no holds-barred politics and the crude practice of
rushing into the well. Holding Parliament and through it the country to ransom.
Bringing things to a pass where might becomes right and brute force replaces
debate and discussion. Spotlighting the basic contempt of our politicians for
democracy and its high temple.
Parliament is spending less and less time on its primary
task: law making. Legislative agenda has become a luxury to be taken up only
when the lung power is exhausted. Single-minded pursuit of power, pelf and
patronage is all that matters. Political polarization is measured through the
prism of power glass politics. Whereby all outbursts are weighted on the voters
scale. Never mind, if it sounds like flogging a dead horse. The figures speak
for themselves. Members are today showing less and less interests in their main
job. Only 16 per cent of their time is spent on lawmaking. The first Lok Sabha
spent 49.80 per cent of its time on enacting legislation.
The maximum time, 50 per cent, is spent on other matters or
unlisted issues. It was a mere four per cent in the first Lok Sabha. The
tragedy becomes stark when one realizes that every minute lost in Parliament
costs the taxpayer Rs 2 lakhs.What is more, the duration of Parliament sessions
has slumped from an average of 200 days a year to barely 75 days. True, what is
important is not the total 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.
Significantly, the Question Hour, rightly described as the
hyphen which links Parliament to Government and ensures ministerial
accountability, is no longer sacred, as it should be. Remember, the hour
belongs to the private members and empowers them to push the Government and
even its Prime Minister into the dock. Any member can ask any question within
the framework of the rules. But time and again rules are waived to dispense
with it. On Thursday, horror of horrors, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha,
Najma Heptulla, even permitted the “dream girl” Hema Malini to fulfil her dream
and make her maiden speech as a nominated member at the start of the Question
Hour, losing all sense of proportion and violating the sacredness of the hour.
Come 12 noon and the Zero Hour the benches no doubt fill up.
Time to take up “hot” issues and, hopefully, hit the headlines. But once the
Zero Hour is over, most MPs depart for the day. Some to the Central Hall to eat
and gossip, others to firm up the evening round of parties. Only a handful
remain to attend the post lunch session. The infamous mother of all scams, the
Telgi scandal involving over Rs 30,000 crore, is a case in point. Only some 30
MPs were present in the Lok Sabha during the discussion under Rule 193. So much
for the interest our jan sevaks in
unmasking the fraud which involves 19 States and several top politicians and
bureaucrats.
Such a state of affairs leads me to ask one question: why do
we not adopt the Westminster system of functioning. The Commons meets at 2 p.m,
and sits till the day’s agenda is completed, even if this means sitting past
midnight. The morning is kept free for the Ministers to attend to their offices
and the MPs to prepare for the sitting. The wife of a visiting British Minister
once asked her Indian counterpart, “How often do you get to see your husband in
the evening when Parliament is in session?” “Of course, everyday”, she replied.
“Lucky you,” shot back the Brit. “I don’t get to see him at all during the
session. He returns late, very late…”
What about the Rajya Sabha? The less said about its recent
vandalisation the better. Yet, incredibly enough, the Right Honourables of the
essentially nominated Council of States, erroneously described as the House of
Elders, celebrated last week over a royal dinner its 200th session.
Instead members should have been mourning the demise of the Rajya Sabha as
originally conceived. The basic character of the Council of States has been
wholly destroyed by providing for open voting and removing the basic
qualification requiring an aspirant to be “ordinarily resident” of a State. If
truth be told, the doors of the House have been flung open to money bags. If
the Central Hall gossip is to be believed, the going rate for membership is Rs
5 crore.
What then should be our basic approach to this distressing
and disgraceful spectacle? Must we stand as mute spectators while Parliament
gets vandalized by our jan sevaks.
Clearly, it is time to give serious thought to rectifying the flaws in our
system and urgently overhauling. If necessary, rules should be drastically
changed to put Parliament back on the rails. Indira Gandhi once wisely said:
“Parliament is a bulwark of democracy… It has also a very heavy task of keeping
an image that will gain it the faith and respect of the people. Because, if
that is lost, then I don’t know what could happen later.” Time to heed her
words and stop the drift towards disaster.—INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature
Alliance)
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