Blow to tradition of debate, dissent

AROUND 1 pm on September 21, after the House had been adjourned for the day and eight Opposition MPs suspended, Rajya Sabha TV began to show a live broadcast of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing projects for poll-bound Bihar. It was a virtual rally and ethical questions can be raised about the non-stop coverage given to the PM’s every word in what was clearly a targeted election programme. But the symbolism of the PM’s adulation by the state broadcaster was quite apt: without much ado about form and process, Rajya Sabha TV, actually mandated with covering the proceedings of the House at the taxpayers’ expense for the benefit of citizens, had returned to the business of promoting the ‘Supreme Leader’ even as parliamentary democracy lay in a shambles.

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Parliamentary tradition survives when participants respect the processes of debate and dissent and allow for all opinions in this very diverse nation to be presented by parties on the floor of both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. When the basic architecture of the agriculture and farm sector is being altered, parliamentary tradition demands that all opinions be put forth, the proposed law be scrutinised most carefully and room be given for every detail to be examined. Had the ruling BJP done so with the farm Bills it rammed through Parliament last week, it’s quite likely that it would have still passed them, through a simple majority in the Lower House and through deft management in the Upper House, where a majority still eludes it, although many regional parties have been amenable to cooperating with the NDA’s floor managers.

The fact that they did not do so raises the question: was there actually a possibility of the Bills being defeated in the Upper House? Or does this regime simply not respect the Opposition? After all, an NDA constituent, the Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, had resigned from her Cabinet post because of the Bills and the farmers’ protests were raging in Punjab and Haryana. What’s more, fence-sitting regional parties such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), representing Odisha, opposed the Bills in the Rajya Sabha after having supported the most contentious legislation put forth by the BJP since it retained power in 2019.

The TRS, Telangana’s ruling party, too opposed the Bills strongly, although it has also been inclined to frequently support the NDA regime in the Rajya Sabha. With so many regional forces stating strong opposition, not least West Bengal’s TMC, the least the government could have done was send the Bills to a select committee, which would have then brought in various farmers’ lobbies and other stakeholders to present their points of view. Not only did they refuse to do so, the next demand that there be actual voting on the Bills was also not acceded to and the government, through the instrument of the recently re-elected deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Harivansh, passed the Bills through a voice vote, which means actual votes of members were not taken.

In the face of such bullying, all that the Opposition members could do was to yell, create a ruckus and shout ‘murder of democracy’. They could have acted with greater decorum, but then would anyone have noticed them, absorbed as the electronic media has been in drugs and Bollywood? Pandemonium broke out with all its unseemly dimensions: Opposition members threw the rulebook at the chairman, tore off mikes and stood on tables. Such scenes and worse have taken place in state Assemblies, in some instances, deteriorating into physical violence, while Parliament too has seen MPs rushing to the Well of the House, refusing to budge and having to be carried away by marshals. Sure, the Opposition MPs were unruly, for which they have been suspended for a week, but what of the government’s approach of using a platform for debate to flex its muscles and display the credo that ‘might is right’?

Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have written a wonderful book, How Democracies Die, that chronicles how institutions are subverted and checks and balances dismantled. Indian Parliament has never been so shorn of power and dignity as it is in 2020 and this monsoon session looks like a mere clearing house for whatever law the regime wishes to pass. As it is, due to the pandemic, the government has truncated the Parliament session, suspended Question Hour, and seems inclined to use whatever time there is to just push through legislation.

The year of the greatest crisis confronted by the Republic — from the second highest number of Covid cases in the world to the greatest reverse migration without war, to one of the most significant reductions in GDP and a build-up on the border with China — has therefore become the year when our Parliament is barely functioning, and even when it does, it’s to evade debate.

All regimes like to get their legislation through. But institutions are negotiated with and not bent till they break. In recent times, the government passed the Aadhaar amendment as a money Bill (that only requires passage in the Lower House), rammed through the removal of Article 370 and has now pushed through significant legislation on agriculture with just a voice vote, that too at a time when protests on the streets are mounting. In a year in which so much has been lost, an institution that made India one of the most successful democracies in the post-colonial world is being rendered powerless, and thereby meaningless. Executive power continues to grow as legislative and judicial checks are weakened — a classic sign of a backsliding democracy.