GS Paper 2
Syllabus: Parliament – Structure, Functioning, Conduct of Business, Powers & Privileges and Issues Arising out of these
Source: TH
Context: A new Parliament building was inaugurated with both celebration and controversy.
Controversy:
- The exclusion of the President of India – the formal head of the executive – from the inauguration.
- The symbolism around the Sengol – was originally used to signify the transfer of power between Chola rulers.
An overlooked fact: The increasing subordination of the Parliament in India’s parliamentary democracy.
Parliamentary democracy:
- It is a system of government in which citizens elect representatives to a legislative parliament to make the necessary laws and decisions for the country.
- This parliament directly represents the people.
Issues faced by the Indian Parliament:
- Frequent adjournments: Parliament sits for fewer and fewer days in a year and Bills are passed with minimal or no deliberation.
- Frequent use of ordinance route: The presidential ordinances have become a parallel if not dominant form of law-making.
- The concentration of power: Within a dominant executive.
Safeguards against executive dominance or abuse:
- The executive must command a majority in Parliament. This opens up the space for intra-party dissent.
- The Opposition is granted certain rights in Parliament to hold the executive accountable.
- The Speaker – a neutral and independent authority, represents the interests of Parliament against the executive.
- Bicameralisme., a second “Upper House” that acts as a revising chamber, where interests other than those of the brute majority are represented.
Problems with the above safeguards:
- The Tenth Schedule to the Constitution: The possibility of intra-party dissent within Parliament has been eliminated by virtue of anti-defection law.
- Enacted to curb horse trading, it penalises disobedience of the party whip with disqualification from the House.
- It has strengthened the hand of the party leadership – cabinet/executive (in the case of the ruling party), against its own parliamentarians.
- The Opposition enjoys no specific Constitutional powers: The manner of proceedings in Parliament is under the complete control of the executive, with no real constitutional checks.
- The Speaker is not independent: S/he is not required to give up membership of their political party, and is not constitutionally obligated to act impartially.
- This has led to an increasing trend of Speakers acting in a partisan manner to advance the interests of the executive over the interests of the House.
- This affects the quality of the deliberations in the lower house.
- The role of the Upper House is undercut: Not only by the Speaker’s misclassification of Bills (as a “money bill”) but also by the constitutionally-sanctioned ordinance making power.
The only effective check upon the executive: When the electorate has thrown up a fractured mandate and the ruling party is forced to govern in a coalition.
The urgent question that needs to be asked: Whether India remains a parliamentary democracy, or has gradually morphed into an executive democracy?
Conclusion:
- The quality of parliamentary deliberations has declined because of Parliament’s own structural marginalisation under the Constitution.
- Therefore, if India wants to return to parliamentarianism, necessary constitutional changes and reforms should form the ethos of the new Parliament.
Insta Links:
India’s New Parliament: Need and Significance
Mains Links:
The role of individual MPs (Members of Parliament) has diminished over the years and as a result healthy constructive debates on policy issues are not usually witnessed. How far can this be attributed to the anti-defection law, which was legislated but with a different intention? (UPSC 2013)
