Indias democracy appears to have grown more fractious and competitive over the years,but underlying the noise and fury are a poise and bipartisan consensus on the rules of the game. This is reflected in the steady levels of legislative output from the first Lok Sabha,1952-1957,to the last,the 14th,2004-2009. For the most part,the average number of laws passed per year has hovered between 20 and 30,says a recent study. In a paper titled Adversarial politics and policy continuity: the UPA,NDA and the resilience of democracy in India,published in Contemporary South Asia earlier this year,political scientist Subrata K Mitra writes: Those unfamiliar with the style of Indian politics must wonder how the worlds largest democracy manages to combine adversarial politics of the most extreme kind with policy continuity and significant legislative outputs. He concedes that Indias national Parliament and state assemblies occasionally take the shape of Roman arenas,with legislators engaging one another in gladiatorial style. Yet,he points out,over the past two decades,although coalitions of the centre left and centre right have traded places,legislative output has remained unhindered and some key policies such as liberalisation of the economy,globalisation,nuclearisation and dialogue with Pakistan have remained pretty much stable. Contrary to popular perception,the ruling party or coalition with the strongest numbers in the Lok Sabha is not the one most likely to pilot the largest number of laws in Parliament. The common sense that law-making was more efficient in single-party regimes of old,and that it has become a slower,more hazardous business in the coalition age,is not supported by evidence either. A higher number of laws has been passed in the last two decades,the study points out,after one-party dominance collapsed at the political centre. At an average of 77.6 a year,legislative output was highest between 2004 and 2009 under UPA-1,while it was lowest,averaging 15 a year,in the tenure of the third Lok Sabha from 1962-1967. The ruling party from 1962-67,the Congress,enjoyed a strength of 73.98 per cent in the Lok Sabha,while UPA-1 had only a 40 per cent dominance in the 14th Lok Sabha. That is,despite the bouts of intense adversarial politics,and in spite of single-party governments giving way to patchy coalitions,there would appear to be policy continuity and a stable institutional environment. At one level,this stability manifested in the legislative output punctures the popular narrative of Indias democracy unravelling under growing pressures and antagonisms that are undermining the vitality of institutions. This story of inexorable decline has been encouraged in recent times by the Anna phenomenon. But in a country as diverse as India,stability comes with its own set of questions. For instance,is it underwritten by a surreptitious collusion,as Mitra puts it,a pas de deux of the adversaries. Institutional stability and policy convergence could also be a pointer to the fact that for Indias voters,choice has been drained from the political menu. In other words,despite abundant diversities at ground level,is there more and more noise at the top about less and less? In the context of the current impasse in Parliament,however,as a range of contentious issues slow down law-making,the study appears to chip away a crucial alibi from UPA-2. The government cannot blame its troubles in piloting crucial legislation in Parliament on its lack of a robust majority,or on intra-coalition fissures. The problem lies elsewhere.
