[Assam] Parliament (Lok Sabha) Withering Away

[Chan Mahanta]

But, but---India is UNITED, isn't it?  What seems to be the problem?

>Clearly, it is time to give serious thought to 
>rectifying the flaws in our system and urgent 
>overhauling.

**** NOOOOO!  :-)

Wake up to reality Dilip. It is better late than never.











At 7:09 AM -0700 10/1/07, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
>I doubt whether some of the MPs are familiar 
>with the constitution or are even aware that the 
>government consists of three branches. Do the 
>freshman MPs at least get some orientation in 
>the first few weeks to understand the process of 
>government?
>Probably some such training will help remove the 
>stalemate. It is very hard to remove 
>partisanship but it is possible to remove some 
>of the hardness due to partisanship. There are 
>issues where the nation comes above party 
>politics and the debaters need to be aware of 
>these. The parliamentarians of the past that the 
>writer extols had this calber and the debates 
>were meaningful.
>Also I have a question - the "Parliament" is 
>called "Lok Sabha" today. What are the "Members 
>of Parliament" called in Hindi, other than MP?
>Dilip
>
>
>FROM THE ASSAM TRIBUNE:
>EDITORIAL
>
>
>Parliament withering away
>— Poonam I Kaushish
>We have been through all this before. Year after 
>year. Of how India’s Parliament is increasing 
>being devalued. Crores of tax payers hard earned 
>money being swept aside by the verbal torrent of 
>puerile discourse that leads to walkouts, even 
>near fisticuffs. Wherein the very protectors of 
>this high temple of democracy have become its 
>denigrators and destroyers.
>
>Of how in their “collective wisdom” our MPs have 
>been spewing sheer contempt on Parliament, 
>wittingly or unwittingly. Reducing it into an 
>akhara, where politically motivated bashing has 
>become the order of the day and agenda a luxury 
>to be taken up when lung power is exhausted. 
>Epitomising a cesspool of every thing that has 
>gone wrong with India today! Testimony to this 
>sharp decline was this year’s shortest ever 
>monsoon session of barely 17 days with the 
>longest daily adjournments and hardly any work, 
>a mere 64 hours.
>
>Shockingly, the session, originally scheduled 
>from 10 August till 14 September, was hurriedly 
>cut short and adjourned sine die four days 
>earlier. No, not because of lack of agenda or 
>legislative business. But due to the proceedings 
>being disrupted in both Houses on a daily basis 
>thanks to the stand-off between the Opposition 
>and the Treasury benches on the Indo-US nuclear 
>deal. The former demanding a JPC on the 
>contentious subject and the latter adamantly 
>declining.
>
>With the result that Parliament further lost 
>credibility and prestige. Leading a much 
>anguished Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee 
>to State in his concluding remarks: “It is 
>extremely disturbing that the highest public 
>forum in the country has come to a standstill 
>which has raised questions about the utility of 
>our system of Parliamentary democracy and about 
>its future.” Raising a moot point: Is Parliament 
>becoming irrelevant?
>
>That we are slowly but surely heading towards 
>disaster is obvious. What troubles one is the 
>new dimension to this age-old malaise. That it 
>does not strike a chord among our MPs. Who 
>largely continue to drift along smugly without 
>thinking of what they have done to Parliament. 
>Of how they have mauled it and continue to do 
>so. Most distressing is that there is no sense 
>of outrage or shame.
>
>The legislative business transacted during the 
>session illustrates how “powerless” parliament 
>has become in stemming the mounting rot. Let’s 
>start with the Question Hour, the hyphen which 
>links Parliament to Government and ensures 
>ministerial accountability. Distressingly out of 
>the 380 starred questions listed, only 35 could 
>be answered. Thus, on an average about 2.05 
>question were answered per day. Why? The MPs 
>were too busy – rushing into the well of the 
>House, raising slogans and preventing 
>transaction of any business.
>
>Mindlessly, ignoring the fact that the hour, 
>treated as sacrosanct in the House of Commons, 
>belong to the private members and empowers them 
>to push the Government and even it’s Prime 
>Minister into the dock. Any member can ask any 
>question within the framework of the rules. 
>This, according to constitutional experts, is 
>what makes the Westminster model of 
>Parliamentary democracy superior to all other 
>systems. The crucial Question Hour consequently 
>got “guillotined” time and again, 
>notwithstanding the midnight oil burnt by 
>various ministries preparing for the answers.
>
>Not only that. Incredibly, four Bills were 
>passed by the House without any discussion 
>whatsoever due to continuous interruptions. No 
>one cared that the bills failed to meet the 
>conventional parliamentary requirement of three 
>readings. The first reading is done when the 
>Minister moves for the bill’s consideration and 
>explains its philosophy and its broad 
>parameters. Thereafter, the bill is closely 
>thrashed out clause by clause in the second 
>reading. The third and 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 a comma! Surprised? 
>Constitutionally and legally, the placing of a 
>comma could make all the difference to the 
>meaning of a clause. Lamented a Lok Sabha MP, “I 
>worked long and hard preparing for speaking on 
>one of the scheduled bills. All my effort is 
>wasted. If one were to divide 64 hours by 17 
>sitting, only three-and-half days of concrete 
>work have been transacted.”
>
>As matters stand, Parliament has already been 
>reduced to a farce. It has become an annual 
>ritual to guillotine the demands for grants of 
>various ministries totalling thousands of crores 
>of rupees. What is more, the Treasury Benches 
>are now increasingly using its brute majority to 
>rubber stamp various policies trumpeted through 
>ministerial fiats and ordinances. Remember, 
>Parliament’s greatest strength and utility lies 
>in its control over the Treasury. This has been 
>systematically eroded. Bringing things to such a 
>pass that a party in power today has no qualms 
>in pushing ahead with populist pronouncements at 
>the drop of a hat. Even when that goes against 
>all parliamentary norms.
>
>Parliament’s all-round decline is today easily 
>Delhi’s best known secret. Everyone talks about 
>it. Not a few lament over it. Be it the quality 
>of leadership, brand of MPs, parliamentary 
>standards and debating skills. Worse, everyone 
>also knows the raison de atre of this sorry 
>state of affairs: the all-pervasive 
>corrupt-criminal nexus and the all-enveloping 
>caste-creed and vote-bank paradigm. Nothing 
>more, nothing less. Yet all willy nilly abet it.
>
>Ironically, even as Parliament withered, it was 
>a win-win session for our MPs. Who earned hefty 
>salaries, perks and innumerable freebies 
>including free lunches in the historic Central 
>Hall, India’s most exclusive club, for shouting 
>and playing truant. Normally, they should have 
>been held accountable for their actions, as 
>during the Nehru era. But no one seems to care 
>anymore beyond shedding crocodile tears and 
>indulging in boring rhetoric, as witnessed once 
>more when the President presented Best 
>Parliamentary awards to Sharad Pawar, Sushma 
>Swaraj, P Chidambaram and Mani Shankar Aiyar.
>
>Parliamentary democracy can succeed only when 
>the rules of the game are followed honestly. 
>Constitutional and other steps therefore, need 
>to be taken soonest to restore to our Parliament 
>its functional glory as originally conceived. 
>Bemoaned a senior CPI leader, “Parliament is 
>being reduced to nothing. MPs are not doing 
>their work but prefer to take allowances... the 
>largest democracy is not functioning. This must 
>be set right!”
>
>The monsoon session has sharply posed a bigger 
>question mark than ever before over the future 
>of India’s parliamentary democracy. The issue is 
>not just of our MPs making ones presence felt by 
>muscle-flexing in the House of the People and in 
>the Council of States or even intolerance of 
>another’s point of view. It is about upholding 
>the highest standards of morality, credibility 
>and dignity of Parliament. The MPs are servants 
>of the people, not their masters.
>
>If Parliament is to function and regain its lost 
>lustre among the people, the Government and the 
>Opposition have to bury the hatchet of distrust. 
>The Treasury and the Opposition benches are two 
>sides of the democratic coin and must ensure 
>orderly debate, discussion and functioning. 
>Basically, the Opposition must have its say, 
>even as the Government has its way. Else, it 
>will lose its credibility and prestige. Worse, 
>become redundant and irrelevant.
>
>Clearly, it is time to give serious thought to 
>rectifying the flaws in our system and urgent 
>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
>
>
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