A more serious resolve?

PIOUS RESOLUTIONS ON the urgency of arresting the precipitous downslide in the functioning of legislative bodies across the country have been ritually made by the presiding officers and political functionaries, but the trend has persisted inexorably prompting scepticism about such declarations. What marks out the latest initiative, which apparently has the backing of a broad spectrum of political consensus, is that it goes beyond generalised prescriptions. This resolution offers specific remedies at least in some areas of immediate concern, as for instance the growing penchant of members to brazenly defy the Chair and even disrupt proceedings through wanton acts of misbehaviour that sometimes take on shades of criminality. In fact, a limited attempt was made in this regard three months ago when the Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr. G.M.C. Balayogi, moved decisively for `automatic suspension' (from the service of the House) as punishment for trooping into the well of the House, and that indeed was a precursor to the expanded and more comprehensive exercise undertaken last Sunday.

In a sense, the code of conduct, insofar as it relates to a member's behaviour inside the House, is but a compilation of the dos and don'ts laid down in the rulebook pertaining to parliamentary procedures. What has been attempted now is to suggest a `graded punishment' - reprimand, admonition, censure, withdrawal from the House, suspension and so on - depending on the gravity of the `offence' and thereby seek to put in place a `parliamentary penal code', so to say. It is not as if the rules of parliamentary procedure and practices in vogue do not provide for such penalties or the Chair is in any way inhibited - statutorily or otherwise - in awarding them to the errant members. But it is only that the presiding officers have, for various reasons, felt constrained or have been reluctant, if not unwilling, to wield the stick against the recalcitrant elements and have, instead, tended to take the easier route of adjournment even where a pointed stern rebuke could have had a salutary impact. As an option, adjournment has, of course, its own value in situations where tempers are frayed, but where filibustering is the name of the game it will only help that `cause'. In any event, while the `code' needs to be adopted by Parliament and the various State Legislatures, now that the `graded punishment' idea has found wide acceptability within the political class, the presiding officers could be expected to intervene more effectively - by a judicious application of the penal provisions - whenever dignity and decorum of the House came to be outraged.

In a larger perspective, the unruly and deviant behaviour of people's representatives in the law-making institutions is a direct consequence of the Indian democratic polity's failure to evolve a sound ideology-based party system with a strong disciplined cadre as its core. On top of it is the stark reality of widespread intrusion of criminal elements into active politics and, by extension, into legislatures, thanks to the loopholes in the electoral laws. It would be unrealistic, therefore, to expect Parliament or the State Legislatures to be picture-perfect as long as these basic causes are not addressed with the sort of seriousness they warrant. These basic factors apart, disorder in legislatures is not always attributable to a refractory or perverse Opposition and, more often than not, it is the Government's own authoritarian ways and stonewalling tactics that provide the provocation for the other side to resort to obstructionist methods, even if they are deplorable in themselves. It is as much the responsibility of the party (or parties) in power as of those in the Opposition to see that the legislature functions smoothly and purposefully. And this, at the minimum, calls for a healthy respect for dissent and spirit of accommodation towards the counter-viewpoint on the part of the Government.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Next     : Reviving confidence in health care