Aakar Patel | To pass effective laws, PM & govt need to reach out to the Opposition

None of this has come to be. Monday, October 7, marks 125 days since the results and the “nothing is happening” feeling is endemic. The main reason for this is that with a minority, the BJP can no longer do in Parliament what it could do between 2014 and 2024.

We have seen this with the Waqf Bill, which was sent to a joint parliamentary committee. For the past decade, with a weak Opposition, the government had not allowed scrutiny of bills by agreeing to send them to a committee. This passing of laws without any real understanding of what they contained through any rigorous process had accelerated through the first decade of the Modi era. In the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-09), 60 per cent of bills were referred to committees for scrutiny. In the next Lok Sabha (2009-14), this number was 71 per cent. In the first Modi government, this fell to 25 per cent.

It wilfully undid the parliamentary convention of referring bills to department-related standing committees for scrutiny and examination right after the first victory in 2014. The number of laws scrutinised before being passed collapsed after Mr Modi’s second victory. The Opposition noticed, and 17 MPs from the Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP, TDP and CPI(M) wrote to the government expressing their concern at the “hurried passing” of bills without scrutiny.

They wrote that public consultation, where groups and individuals engaged with particular subjects are invited by legislators to put forward their views on prospective laws, had also stopped. “Public consultation is a long-established practice where parliamentary committees scrutinise bills, deliberate, engage and work towards improving the content and quality of the legislation,” they wrote.

This had no effect on Mr Modi, and in 2020, not a single bill was sent to a committee for scrutiny. Between March and August that year, the government promulgated 11 ordinances, including one that amended the Income-Tax Act and allowed 100 per cent tax exemption to donations made to the PM CARES fund. Ordinances are meant to be brought in only when Parliament is not in session and the government is required to take immediate action. No ordinance is allowed to be in force for more than six months without parliamentary approval. Here was legislation by ordinance that was voted into law without any scrutiny.

Even where there had been committees, the government prevented them from working. Government MPs were “using the rule book to stonewall scrutiny on issues that may raise uncomfortable questions for the government”. The committee on home affairs met to discuss the decision on Kashmir after the state had already been bifurcated. After the Covid-19 pandemic, standing committees were disallowed from meeting even virtually, with the excuse that this might violate confidentiality.

While Opposition MPs complained, the BJP took up and dispatched contentious laws on triple talaq and the RTI (both passed after an Opposition walkout), and the amendment to UAPA which allows the government to designate individuals as “terrorists”. Similarly, the farm bills, the bill that skewered Kashmir’s special status and the one amending citizenship were not referred to any committee of Parliament for in-depth deliberation on a non-partisan basis. All would produce trouble later. PRS Legislative Research’s Chakshu Roy wrote why the abandonment of legislative scrutiny was a problem: “In a nutshell, all laws do not receive the same amount of parliamentary attention. A few undergo rigorous scrutiny by parliamentary committees. Others are passed with just a simple debate on the floor of the House. When the treasury and Opposition agree, even the most far-reaching laws are passed by Parliament with alacrity. When there is disagreement on politically contentious bills like the two Bills on agriculture, then the swift passage results in unruly scenes in Parliament. The outweighing factor is the government’s urgency in enacting a particular legislation. When the government is in a hurry, even bills amending the Constitution can be passed in two to three days.”

There was another problem with this and that was that “when parliamentary committees do not scrutinise bills, it increases the chances of the country being saddled with half-baked laws”. So, consultation is not only important but necessary.

Mr Modi reversed a tradition of consultation that even the British had followed as India’s masters. When a law on forcible indigo cultivation began to be framed in 1917, and the Champaran Agrarian Bill was introduced in the Bihar-Orissa Legislative Assembly, many members demanded it be referred to a House select committee for scrutiny and examination. The British government conceded and Mahatma Gandhi was requested to examine the bill. With a strong Opposition in place now, the phase of absolute BJP dominance has come to an end. To govern effectively, to legislate successfully, Mr Modi must reach out to the Opposition parties. He has to include it in decision-making as Prime Ministers before him have done. As long as he does not, and he is showing no signs that he accepts the reality, this drift that his fans are anguishing over will remain. The ball, as the cliche goes, lies in his court.