In a country riven with political divides, there is at least one issue on which the people of India appear to be overwhelmingly in agreement: Parliament should function. The daily spectacle of the unseemly disruptions of the highest democratic forum of the world’s largest democracy is creating in the common Indian a sense of alienation with democracy itself. The question is no longer who is at fault, the Opposition or the Treasury benches. The question ordinary citizens are asking is: Can there not be some solution to this unedifying impasse?
It is true that the primary responsibility to ensure that the House functions lies with the Treasury benches. This was a point the BJP repeated ad nauseum when it was in the Opposition. It is also true that when the UPA government was in power, the BJP created a record for the maximum number of parliamentary disruptions. In fact, both Arun Jaitley, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha then, and Sushma Swaraj, his counterpart in the Lok Sabha, sought to give parliamentary disruptions democratic validity. In different ways, both of them said publicly that not allowing Parliament to function is a legitimate form of democratic practice. Entire sessions of Parliament were washed out in pursuit of this dubious “democratic” theory.
To my mind, the current impasse, that has seen the current session of Parliament adjourned day after day, is a consequence of an original mistake committed by the BJP. That mistake was the conspicuous absence of the Prime Minister when Parliament took up, on the very first day, the burning issue of demonetisation. The debate began in the Rajya Sabha in the expectation that the Prime Minister would join. That expectation was not unwarranted. The Prime Minister had taken ownership of this momentous decision. He had announced it personally on national television on November 8. It was only to be expected that he would, therefore, participate in the debate on this decision, specially when the entire Opposition in unison was asking for him to be there. After the debate began, when the Prime Minister did not show up until the House broke for lunch, and nor did the Treasury benches give an assurance about his participation, the Opposition was naturally incensed, and disrupted the House.
This disruption continued for several days thereafter, but the Prime Minister seemed to have made it a prestige point not to concede to the Opposition’s demand. This was truly mystifying. In any other mature democracy the Prime Minister would himself wish to be present in a debate on an issue that had deeply impacted the entire country, specially if he had so publicly advertised the fact that it was his decision. In the United Kingdom, for instance, can you imagine a situation where on a pivotal debate, such as Brexit, the Prime Minister would not lead from the front, and stay away from the House, arguing that his senior most minister could deputise for him?
To the best of my knowledge there is no specific formal rule that can compel the Prime Minister to be present in a debate, yet the best practices of parliamentary democracy require a Prime Minister to do so voluntarily and willingly. Previous Prime Ministers, including Atal Behari Vajpayee, would, I am sure, not even have waited for the Opposition to make this demand. They would have done the courtesy to listen to the leaders of Opposition parties, and even if they did not sit continuously through the proceedings, made their presence felt, intervened when necessary, and replied at the end of the debate.
It was wrong on the part of Narendra Modi, therefore, to make his non-attendance a prestige point, specially since, even when Parliament was in session, he was speaking on this very subject in other forums. But this being said, when after several days of the parliamentary logjam, the Prime Minister did show up, and Mr Jaitley, the Leader of the House, said that he would participate in the debate, I think it was in the Opposition’s interest to begin the debate and allow Parliament to function. Indeed, the debate did begin, but when the Prime Minister was not seen in the House in the post-lunch session, the Opposition again stormed into the well and disrupted the House. After several days of disruption, when the Prime Minister showed up again, the Opposition insisted that he first apologise for his comment outside Parliament that those opposing demonetisation were doing so only because they had not been given enough time to “prepare”.
Many Opposition parties took that comment as a slur on their bonafides, and insisted on an apology from the Prime Minister, which, expectedly, he has as yet not tendered. The net result is that the debate on the vital issue of demonetisation has not resumed. The position is similar in the Lok Sabha, where the Opposition is asking for the debate to take place under a rule that requires voting, and for some inexplicable reason, the BJP, that has a brute majority in that House, is not willing to accede to this demand.
The current impasse requires maturity from both sides of the divide. The original mistake was that of the BJP and the Prime Minister. The subsequent distortion was expected, but should have been contained by the Opposition when the opportunity arose, because it was in its own interest to have a debate and present its point of view forcefully on the floor of the House. Given its track record of disrupting Parliament when it was in the Opposition, the BJP is hardly in a position to sermonise on the need for the House to function. Yet, at some point, even the present Opposition has to realise that this tit for tat game has to stop, if for no other reason than the distressing fact that the people of India are fast losing both their respect and faith in Parliament itself.
