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Journalism of Courage
Too many state assemblies are disabled by partisan rancour and disregard for institutional decorum
The DMK has been collectively suspended for what remains of the budget session in the Tamil Nadu assembly,after being evicted four times this session for disrupting proceedings. There has been heightened tension between the ruling AIADMK and the opposition parties,with both the DMK and DMDK evicted on separate occasions. In February,DMDK chief and leader of the opposition Vijayakanth was suspended for 10 days. This is not a new phenomenon in Tamil Nadu,where partisanship appears to run deep and bitter,and often spills into outright antagonism between the treasury and opposition benches in the assembly. In 1989,Jayalalithaa was attacked by DMK members in the assembly,and declared that she would set foot in it again only as chief minister,a vow she made good on,in 1991. Since then,she and her DMK arch-adversary Karunanidhi dont enter the assembly when the other party is in power,except every six months to sign the attendance register outside the hall. The legislatures effectiveness as an institution of deliberation,oversight and accountability has been seriously eroded in the state.
State legislatures are not models of public reasoning. As in Parliament as well,it appears there is more value to be extracted in grandstanding,in sparring rather than advancing an idea. There are no real electoral penalties for lacklustre performance in the assembly. National attention focuses on such incidents only intermittently. But the corrosion of these institutions has serious long-term consequences for deliberative democracy.
