Indian Parliament – its best, its worst

If we divide great men who participated in the national freedom movement, survived to see a free India, and participated in drafting a Federal, Democratic Republic with parliamentary form of government, they can be sorted into two broad categories: One, those who thought within the inherited ‘box-thinking’, and second, those who always thought ‘out of the box’! I say this because men of great abilities belonging to the first category drafted the Constitution as they were a majority. This group included Pandit Nehru, K.M. Munshi, Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar and many others.

These men generally believed in what they knew with their short-time participation in the parliamentary system as the better option to organise the governance of India, than the other systems, mainly presidential that they didn’t know. But a few equally competent great nationalists but accustomed to think out of the box, said that to govern India we needed a stable executive that the Presidential system alone can provide. These were men like Prof. K.T. Shah, H.V. Kamath and a few others.

The Indian Parliament has been in operation since 26 January 1950, celebrated by the nation as Republic Day. For the last 66 years, India has seen a parliamentary democracy in operation. The Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi was critical and used un-parliamentary terms to describe the working of it in the UK in 1908. Intellectually oriented Indian Prime Ministers (PMs) in the past have expressed their frustration with the working of the parliamentary system in India; thus for instance, former PM, Atal Behari Vajpayee had said that democracy in India had “become a hollow shell” with “elections reduced to a farce.”

Some other PMs have also expressed a need for a stable executive that is similar as provided by the presidential system – that is not necessarily as in the US, but providing for a stable, effective and performing government. PM Manmohan Singh had been critical of a coalition government; similarly, former President A.P.J. Kalam had also favoured a presidential system. I tend to agree with S. C. Kashyap, who wrote: “The framers of the Constitution neither had time nor the interest to conceive of a structure that kept in mind the future of India…”

Best moments, best parliamentarians
Given the above background, Indian Parliament had its moments of glory bringing out the best from the responsible Members of Parliament (MP). Hence primarily, the Parliament is made of people – MPs, who are elected by the people to represent them for a given time, normally for five years. Thus, it is the quality, calibre and commitment to the institution of the Parliament and its working that really makes or mars the name of the Parliament. The word Parliament comes from the term parley; it is a talking shop, a place where all aspects of a policy proposed by the Executive are debated before it is finally adopted. The Parliament, since inception had highly talented, highly educated men and women as they came from a class that deserted their lucrative profession to devote themselves to the national movement. But no one can expect today the Parliament of that calibre; that is true of all legislatures in comparison to the composition soon after winning Independence – one can make a study of the US legislature or of South Africa to support the point.

Yet, early best adherence to sense of individual responsibility and political accountability was demonstrated in December 1956 when Lal Bahadur Shastri was Railway Minister. In September 1956 at Mahabubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, in a railway accident when 112 persons were killed, he offered to resign but PM Nehru did not accept it. In December 1956 when another accident occurred at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu, Shastri resigned accepting moral and constitutional responsibility. Nehru speaking on the incident lauded Shastri’s integrity and commitment to high ideals. Nehru added that he was accepting the resignation not because Shastri was responsible for the accident in anyway, but he had set an example in adhering to constitutional propriety.

Now often we hear politicians saying that if a minister is to resign owning up responsibility for a disaster, nobody will be left out to accept ministerial responsibility! That is just the politicians’ moral unpreparedness to resign!

What comes to mind in mentioning as examples where responsible persons could have resigned are: the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 in retaliation to Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination – as though it was a community conspiracy to assassinate Mrs. Gandhi! The then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi or Home Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao should have resigned owning responsibility, instead of justifying the massacre by stating that when a huge Banyan tree falls, it is bound to shake the Earth! Similarly, the Bhopal gas tragedy, (in December 1984, Madhya Pradesh) which killed over 5000 people and left nearly 50,000 with various disabilities. None owned up any political responsibility either at the Centre or at the state government level. Instead, much time was spent in the Parliament and the state assembly debating over the escape of Warren Anderson, who was the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal disaster. A somewhat similar situation is now being witnessed with the escape of Vijay Mallya, not merely an industrialist but a sitting MP, to the United Kingdom. He has gone out of India using his diplomatic passport! Were any anticipatory steps taken by the government? Why not hold a detailed discussion on how different nationalised banks went on lending him money and fix ministerial and bureaucratic accountability? In the meanwhile, expel him from the Rajya Sabha.

The worst moments
In the process of democratic mobilisation of voters, there has always been a peripheral role played by the criminal elements. A study of ‘goonda’ files in Kolkata has shown that “West Bengal’s illustrious Congress Chief Minister, Dr. B. C. Roy had close links with a notorious goonda of the city, Gopal Mukherjee”. After Nehru, rot set in the Parliament. One feature that is increasingly disturbing to the watchers of democracy in India is the growing stranglehold of corruption and increasing number of MPs with criminal charges within the halls of Parliament.

Corruption was known even during the Nehru era. Until the 1980s, the criminals and the corrupt supported politicians, providing money and muscle power; but since the 1990s, these elements have gained entry into the houses of Parliament as members. The best example would be the election of the late Phoolan Devi, an ex-dacoit, on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket to the Lok Sabha in 1996. Former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, late P. A. Sangma had said during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Parliament that there are 40 sitting MPs and 700 sitting MLAs facing criminal charges including murder. He had called for a “second freedom struggle” to free the country from internal contradictions!

MPs on sale!
Narsimha Rao was the first non-Nehru-Gandhi Congress PM from 1991 to 1996; his government did not enjoy even a simple majority in the Lok Sabha to begin with. In 1993, when the opposition introduced a no-confidence motion against his government, Rao had to literally buy six more MPs to survive. And these were purchased from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha! The Congress MPs who helped him to carry out the Survival Operation Success (SOS) were well rewarded.

There were critics in the media of the SOS, but not much criticism was heard within the Parliament. Fifteen years later, another SOS was played out. This time it was for the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi-led government in July 2008, seeking parliamentary approval to the India-US Civil Nuclear Deal after the CPI (M), that was providing outside prop to the Congress-led UPA government, withdrew its support. The case in brief of buying MPs for SOS, known as ‘cash-on-table’, indicate that the Congress Party deployed Samajwadi Party’s then General Secretary, Amar Singh to implement the deal. Three BJP MPs were offered three crores each in cash help the Congress. They were told that the government is sure of survival, but they were requested to abstain from voting to make it a guaranteed SOS. But the BJP MPs brought the cash into the House and wads of ` 1000 were liberally demonstrated for the media to record the drama! The national Emergency declared by Mrs. Indira Gandhi in June 1975 must rate as the worst moment in the annals of the Indian Parliament so far. Mrs. Gandhi aimed to reduce the Parliament to a rubberstamp in the hands of the Prime Minister – proclaimed as the only man in the Cabinet by her coterie of yes-men! Prominent leaders of the opposition were even imprisoned by her and many political voices stifled.

Conclusion
Increasingly, many serious students, analysts and even former PMs and Presidents within the Indian parliamentary system, have come to believe that the current system can only further deteriorate since it is not a suitable form of government for a highly pluralistic society. It is better for India to gain advantages of a stable government elected for a fixed term as in the US. Even in the US, the President tries to buy SOS – not for survival but to implement policies when he doesn’t have requisite support in the Congress. But support is secured by promising projects in the constituencies of the opposing senators or the Congressmen. It is not corruption, in any way; it helps the elected members to nurse their constituencies. But buying of MPs in India is generating black money, discrediting the polity and the economy.

It is pointed out that in many other democracies too, elected members indulge in corruption and disruptive behaviour by throwing microphones to hurt others as it happens in democracies like Taiwan, Ukraine or Somalia. But it is a highly fallacious argument, because Indian democracy is looked upon by the developing world as a model for them.

Hence, there is an expectation of better behaviour from our MPs inside the Parliament. The main political parties – the BJP and the Congress who have used disruption as a device to promote party interests can today resolve that under normal times, disrupting the working of the House is a non-parliamentary device. Yet, everyone who wishes better conduct on the part of the MPs need to know: When Cromwell dissolved the House of Commons in 1653, he is reported to have said that “no dogs barked” at his action. That made former Vice Chancellor of University of Ceylon, Ivor Jennings to write: “Better, dogs bark inside, outside they may bite.”

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