In a strange year for Parliament, Lok Sabha witnessed one of its strangest episodes. On Tuesday, the last day of the absurdly named “monsoon session”, it passed eight bills in 17 minutes. The absurdity was highlighted by the fact that even as these bills were passed, for quite a while afterwards parliamentary reporters were scrambling to get clarity on the content of the bills passed. Or perhaps in a calendar year, in which only 46 sittings were held, it was our MPs’ way of letting all know that lack of discussion shall not hold them from transacting brisk legislative business.Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has made his distress public. He notes that 2008 had the lowest number of sittings in Parliament’s history. He also worried about the lack of discussion. It is good that, as the presiding officer in the Upper House, he has joined a languishing debate: how to make Parliament more responsive? This year, 2008, has after all also been memorable for the somewhat elevated tenor of proceedings in some instances — for example, during the vote of confidence in the summer (if one takes away the disturbing spectacle later of bags of cash being thrown around in the Lok Sabha) or during the debate on terror this month. So, why can this not be sustained?Legislators, of course, must bear full responsibility for their conduct in the House and also for their long absences in a system which demands them only to mark attendance, and not attend sittings. But perhaps the matrix too needs to be changed, to make the rewards of participation higher. For instance, by reconsidering the stringency of the anti-defection law, which makes MPs mere statistics and does not need them to justify individual voting decisions. Or by innovations like, possibly, a prime minister’s question hour, in which the chance to ask stern questions of the leader of the Lok Sabha would be too good to pass off for the lung-enhancing thrills of slogan-shouting. Let’s hear it for a more reformed Parliament in the new year.
