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Year of House unrest by PC Alexander

Within a few days from today we will be crossing over to the second decade of the 21st century. Those of us born in the 20th century and lived through the first decade of the 21st, have indeed been fortunate to experience the impact of several giant steps of progress in human history. Mankind has indeed achieved much more in this period than it had in all the previous periods of recorded history.

The most remarkable of all achievements has been that human beings have had a much healthier and longer life in this period than in the earlier ones. World population in the year 1800, was just one billion. But it took only 130 years to add the second billion, 30 to add the third, 15 to add the fourth, 12 to add the fifth and just 11 years to add the sixth. One of the greatest achievements registered in human history during this period has not only been the increase in the number of people and the length of life, but also increase in the participation of people in their own governance or what is called democracy.

The progress of democracy has, of course, not been uniform, but there is general acceptance of the indispensability of certain institutions for the healthy functioning of democracy such as - elections based on universal adult franchise, independent judiciary, continuing accountability of the executive to the people, free press and non-political military and civil services. If we go by the experience of most newly independent countries, it will be seen that these institutions have undergone varying degrees of distortion and devaluation, and that the one which has suffered most has been the legislatures. The legislature, besides making laws in any democracy, is expected to function as the forum for debates and discussions on all matters affecting governance and equally importantly to function as the main instrument for holding the executive continuously accountable to the people. However, these important objectives are becoming increasingly sidelined in many newly-independent countries of the world today, including India, and this should cause serious concern about the future of democracy in these countries.

I do not propose to refer in this column to the distortions and deficiencies in the systems and practices of elections to the legislatures such as the unreliability of the electoral rolls, unfair use of money power and muscle power, lack of inner party democracy etc. They have been highlighted several times through speeches and writings of political leaders and constitutional experts, but certain new developments regarding the functioning of Parliament after elections have not received the attention they deserve in most developing countries. One such development as far as India is concerned is that Parliament has not been able to meet for even 100 days in a year. The average number of days when our Parliament meets in a year, which used to be 140 days in the early years of Independence had come down to 74 in 2004 and still the great harm it has caused to the quality of democracy does not appear to have been adequately understood by most people who participate in the laborious process of elections.

It is obvious that in any democratic country representatives of the people elected to Parliament should have adequate time and opportunity to remain in close contact with the people who elected them and keep themselves well-informed about their problems and expectations. Therefore, it is important that the members of Parliament (MPs) should be spending, at least, half of their tenure in their own constituencies, but reducing the period for the sittings of Parliament to as low a level as 74 days in a year is defeating the basic objectives of the institution of Parliament.

It is sometimes claimed that the committee system which had been recently introduced has given the MPs adequate opportunities outside the main meetings to express their views on important issues which come up before Parliament. But the claim of fair record of attendance in the committees of Parliament is not true. Very often thin attendance has become the normal practice in parliamentary committees as well.

Another development which is as disturbing as the small number of days when Parliament meets is the indifference of members towards their duties within the House during the meetings of Parliament. A few days ago, there was a report in the media that as many as 28 MPs whose questions had been admitted for answers had not turned up to ask their questions.

Sometimes members ask for even the suspension of the Question Hour in order to raise some issues which they consider important. A good deal of the one hour earmarked for the Question Hour is sometimes spent on the issue whether the Question Hour for the day should be suspended or not! The Question Hour - in a parliamentary democracy - is one of the most important instruments for enforcing accountability of the ministers to the legislature and if it is not taken seriously even by the members who had been permitted to raise questions, the very purpose of having a Question Hour everyday is defeated.

One of the reasons for loss of days for the sittings of Parliament is that the rules and procedures for orderly conduct of business of Parliament are not strictly followed. The presiding officers often find themselves helpless to enforce the rules because of lack of adequate support from the members. Even incidents of serious indisciplined behaviour within Parliament are treated as party issues and go without any punishment. If the trend of disorder inside Parliament has to be checked it will be necessary to consider questions of indiscipline or misbehaviour by members as issues concerning the entire House without any consideration for the party affiliations of the members concerned.

Parliament should consider stricter punishment for the members who are found guilty of indiscipline and gross misbehaviour inside the House. If MPs themselves are not alert and vigilant in observing the rules and procedures for the conduct of business prescribed by themselves, the institution of Parliament will lose the confidence and respect of the people and this will also seriously affect the efficiency and usefulness of all other institutions.

P.C. Alexander is a former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra