A common floor

Roughly halfway through the allotted days for its winter session,Parliament finally,and for the first time,hummed with normal business on Wednesday. Peace has suddenly broken out,with the opposition hailing the governments olive branch for its FDI retreat,a rather disingenuous face-saver for all concerned,given that normal functioning was not given a chance even in the days preceding the FDI announcement,with adjournments forced on issues like price rise,black money,Telangana. The fact is that between the oppositions insistent obstructionism and the governments lethargic floor management,the legislature has lost its capacity to wrest the initiative in taking up debates,arguments,discussions as a matter of routine,amid the drama of point-scoring negotiations between party leaders. Too often now,debate does not ebb and flow in the course of parliamentary proceedings great ceremony accompanies the setting of terms of engagement. As MPs from the opposition and the treasury benches have pointed out in these pages,the reason for this is that far too often political parties operate as blocs,without agency for individual MPs.

This obviously draws from the way political parties position themselves in a crowded fray,but it is not healthy for democracy. It is natural that MPs of a particular persuasion will often cluster together on any given subject but the democratic expectation is not that the party line will come handed down as diktat,especially if a trust vote is not on the agenda. As individuals,many MPs argue that the grip of the anti-defection law needs to be relaxed,that debates should be placed outside its purview. The point is worth reiterating in the context of the agitations over the Lokpal bill this year,where pressure tactics like fasts were sought to be used to dictate not just a subject for discussion,but also to presume to bully Parliament into committing to a particular version of a legislation. Specifics of that specific legislation aside,politicians correctly stated that as duly elected representatives of the people,they retain the right to vote as they see fit,that law-making is Parliaments domain. It is an enlightened argument that,however,militates against the stifling of possible dissent or disagreement among individual MPs by the party whip.

Even in this year of absences,Parliament has had to delineate its independence and powers vis-a-vis the street and the judiciary. A natural progression is a deliberative reconsideration of the democratic costs/dividends of the anti-defection law.