Making The House Work

Context: When a government with a comfortable majority does not reach out, Opposition must step in.

Challenges associated with the Parliament procedure of India

• No clarity of passing laws: The laws introduced in Parliament having no clarity of whether these laws will be mechanically and summarily repealed as the largesse of the majority party or if there will be a robust discussion delving into circumstances that led to their imminent repeal.
• Laws will be passed, but never implemented: In past two years, Parliament has passed quite a few bills whose constitutionality is in serious doubt and which are challenged by social sections affected by them.
  • Eg. Farm Laws, CAA, decision to prepare a national register of citizens, etc.
• Ineffectiveness of Parliament: Despite slide in India’s status in international rankings on democracy, human rights and press freedom, an ever-increasing number of sedition cases and spiraling UAPA cases.
• Laws passed by Parliament are increasingly being seen as unacceptable: Eg. Anti-CAA agitation did strike a chord with a section of people, farm laws. 
• Majority government seems less representative than many minority governments of the past: The majority government doesn’t have the capacity to take the majority along.
• Responsibility of representation now shifts to the Opposition: Acrimony might be unavoidable, but it is incumbent on the Opposition to avoid creating pandemonium merely as a tactic. 
  • Noise and sloganeering cannot replace the responsibility to represent. Pandemonium is only a cover up for bad coordination and lack of homework.
• Independence of ruling parties: It connected members to both, intra-party democracy and to intra-party factionalism. When parties have factions, they become democratic in their internal functioning. 
  • Issue is whether they have the courage to express their dissatisfaction. 
  • Litmus test to their independence will be in how they express themselves in Parliament. 
• Gap between Parliament and society: Protests have played, and will continue to play, a critical role in forcing people to confront the issue of representation. 
• Rising antinomy between Parliament and protests is more due to unrepresentativeness of Parliament than due to the rebellious ways of civil society. Such contestations alone constitute the core of democracy. 

Way Forward

• Need to ensure coordination on common issues, strategies on parliamentary procedures and above all, endeavour to represent voices that have been suppressed by the current regime. 
• Opposition needs to take up the responsibility to challenge and probe the government.
• Ruling party members need to be more sincere about the parliamentary system, and unafraid of executive power.
• Must be reiterated that no democracy can exist without a robust civil society: Its tension-ridden relationship with party politics must be recognized.

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