Opinion Being presidential
Pranab Mukherjee reminds government, opposition of their responsibilities. They would do well to pay heed.
The Narendra Modi government must take note of President Pranab Mukherjee’s remark during an interaction with university students on Monday. The ordinance route for law-making should be taken only in “compelling circumstances”, he said. There is a context to Mukherjee’s comment. There has been a flurry of ordinances — nine so far — since the Modi government took over in May 2014.
Signalling caution, the president had sought a clarification from the government when it forwarded the ordinance regarding amendments to the land acquisition act in December. With the budget session just a month away and amid loose talk of joint sessions being called to pass bills, these observations of a president, who is political in the best sense of the term, are timely and wise.
As Mukherjee underlined, enacting laws through executive fiat goes against the spirit and promise of a robust democracy. Admittedly, the Modi government is hamstrung by its lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha. But the UPA 1 and UPA 2 governments too found themselves in a similar predicament in the Upper House. In the past, this limitation was overcome by the ruling party reaching out to parties across the aisle. The Modi government too must engage and negotiate with the opposition, prod and persuade it to lend support for its bills. Measures like a joint session of Parliament are rare — Mukherjee pointed out that a joint session has been convened to pass a law only four times since 1952 — and with good reason in a parliamentary democracy that takes pride in the due deliberative process in the House.
Mukherjee had a word of advice for the opposition as well. In a parliamentary democracy, “it is the mandate of the majority to rule” and the opposition has “the right to oppose, expose and if the numbers permit to dispose”, but it must not disrupt the functioning of Parliament, he said. Both government and opposition must heed the president.
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