A crime against democracy

By Pran Chopra

THE IDES of March have struck India's Parliament twice in two years. Last year too, it was about this time that events erupted which made one comment in this column, under the title ``Twilight of Parliament'', that unless things improved the correct heading the next time round could well be the ``Night of Parliament''. This year the shadow has been growing darker with every passing day since March 14, and light is nowhere in sight at the time of this writing. What we are seeing instead is the biggest crime against democracy since Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency in 1975. Until now it was possible to hope that so long as Parliament functioned well, the disorderly few would learn better behaviour from the example set them by those more dedicated to parliamentary ways. But they are setting an example in wilful defiance of the whole system by which a billion people have chosen to govern themselves.

As was argued in this space a year ago, it is not only the function of Parliament but the reason for its existence to provide a forum where the concerns of the people may be considered from all points of view and decisions taken in accordance with rules accepted by Parliament and endorsed by the people. A Government which fails to respect the decisions can be then be voted out, by Parliament in the first instance, and should that forum fail, then by the people themselves.

This is the lifeline of the whole system. Snap it, and the entire system will collapse, and that will hurt no one more than it will hurt the very people who need the system most. For them this is the only place where they can plead their case, lacking as they do the many other levers which others can use to bend Governments to their wishes. If this sounds like a premature prophecy of doom, we should look back on the days when behaviour which more befits the hoodlum began to undermine the dignity of a Legislature or two. The guilty were few in those days, and so the rest were able to shake heads tolerantly on what they saw only as untrained exuberance on the part of newly elected members who had yet to digest the unfamiliar sense of power which the vote had given them. But today the guilty are many, in all parts of the House, and they are drawn from all sections of society. So the contagion spreads. What those in one legislature do today they are able to do because others in other legislatures had done it yesterday.

In the circumstances of some years ago, the Opposition could be forgiven some of its excesses for the reason that in election after election it polled more votes and remained a helpless minority because of the vagaries of our first-past-the-post voting system. But even then, enraged behaviour was not the wisest response they could have made. A much better one was demonstrated some decades ago, when just a couple of members of the Lok Sabha, including Feroze Gandhi, father-in-law of Ms. Sonia Gandhi (as she needs to remember while her party charges into the well of the House) brought down the Finance Minister of the mighty Government of Jawaharlal Nehru. They were able to do so because they concentrated on the quality of their evidence and arguments, remained strictly within the rules, and caused not a ripple in the dignity of the House.

That was democracy at work, and since then democracy has given all parties yet another reason for respecting its rules. It has shown in election after election that no party need fear becoming an exasperated minority, because it can become a bigger force by making judicious alliances. If BJP can do so, despite being isolated on all sides at one time, so can the Congress(I) if it gives up, first, its current commitment to mayhem and, next, its claim to exclusive power. There is neither need nor justification now for parties to flout the rules of parliamentary democracy. Yet they continue to do so, and thus make themselves and their leaders contemptible in the public eye. One doubts whether there has ever been a time when public esteem for Legislatures and legislators, and for politics and politicians, has sunk as low as it has today, with obvious consequences for the future of democracy. They may have come closer than they realise to dragging India also into the graveyard where many countries have buried the democracy they had once boasted of. That is a sad footnote to add so soon to the recent celebrations of India's democracy - the ``50 years'' and the millennium celebrations, and the soul searching session of the Lok Sabha at which members pledged themselves to better behaviour.

There is a short term remedy for the passing distempers which afflict Parliament from time to time. The presiding officers have always had, and have sometimes used, the power to order that an offending statement or remark will not go on the record, or will be struck off. This power of course is rendered meaningless when television cameras broadcast the remarks before the presiding officer can rule on them. But this can be prevented with two small technical interventions. A simple one is that the presiding officer should have a master button with which he can switch off the cameras when members descend into bedlam. A more elaborate one would insert a few seconds' delay between the recording and transmission of a picture, and the offending one can be eliminated as ``off the record'' if the presiding officer so decides. Either device would disarm the incentive which a member probably has today for showing his voters back home that whether he has the brain power to serve them or not, he still tries his best with his lung power, and even with his muscle power by throwing missiles at ``the enemies of the people''.

But even to mention such odious devices is only to show how far we have sunk. Parliament, or any other legislature, can rest on nothing if it cannot, first, on the respect in which the people may hold it, and then on the belief of its members that they have been elected to serve the people through the Legislature and cannot do so if at every denial of their demand the first thing they do is to disrupt the house. If public respect for Parliament is diminishing by the day it is because its members, including some upon whom it has conferred the title of Parliamentarian of the Year, now believe that public causes are best served by public display of high visibility disorder. What can give higher visibility to disorder than fisticuffs in the country's highest forum, while a nationwide television programme carries pictures of their ``service'' to all corners of the country?

Not only the special breed of politicians like Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, but even those who came into politics in better times like Mr. Pranab Mukherji (now joined from time to time by a senior advocate, Mr. Kapil Sibal, who can of course plead lack of experience if he wishes to) have no compunction in declaring from the steps of the House or on its floor that unless their demands are met they will not allow Parliament to do any work. This has happened before as well, and once this caprice had laid siege to Parliament for even longer than it has this time (so far). But the demand has never been so blatantly unparliamentary than the present demand that the Government must resign before Parliament can be given the chance to debate the merits of the demand. It would be absurd to bar a debate in the very House which has to decide whether the Government should quit or stay.

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