Opinion Parliament is being hollowed out
Parliament and the parliamentary system had a purpose. An executive is made answerable regularly and here and now; not just after five years. When a government consistently treats this essence of the system as dispensable, it begs the question: Why is this happening?
The present standoff will, in the short run, give way to mutual mudslinging and “balanced” commentary. Let us imagine how the deadlock in the Parliament could have played out differently. A strident Opposition wanting to corner the government on issues that might be embarrassing to the executive is nothing extraordinary in a parliamentary system. Now suppose the Prime Minister sits in the House when the LoP speaks. The ruling party objects to something the LoP is saying or quoting from, the PM rises to say that the government has no fears, let us allow the LoP to proceed with what he is saying.
In that scenario, the PM would have seemed to be not only confident and democratic, but the government would also have seemed unafraid. It would have been advantage ruling party; the LoP would have received less publicity; the deadlock would have been avoided and, in the long term, the institution of Parliament would have become more respectable.
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Is it the failure of the tacticians of the ruling party that this course was not adopted? Is it the megalomania of the leader that makes magnanimity impossible? Perhaps. But more than that, we are witnessing a symptom of the hollowing out of institutions that is more serious than the immediate deadlock. “Neutral” commentary will surely apportion blame among all actors. But one must locate the incidence — the gagging of the LoP, the threat to the safety of the PM as perceived by the presiding officer and the subsequent hammer-strong attack by the PM on Congress but ducking the core issue — in the larger story that is unfolding daily, across institutions.
Parliament and the parliamentary system had a purpose. An executive is made answerable here and now; not just after five years. When a government consistently treats this essence of the system as dispensable, it begs the question: Why is this happening?
Personal idiosyncrasy, an acrimony born out of long years of distrust, or contempt of the Opposition are not adequate answers. Today, we witness the coexistence of two tendencies.
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One is the deeply ingrained belief in the leadership of the ruling party that they have a mission to fulfill, that they truly represent the nation, and that everybody is conspiring against them — and by implication, conspiring against the nation. In other words, they represent good against evil. This self-belief makes them wary of formal institutional niceties and nuances. They think that, after all, the larger mission is of greater moral significance than the procedures that go in the name of democracy.
Not only that, the ruling dispensation also holds the view that democratic procedures adopted through the “colonially inspired” Constitution are Western baggage. One may occasionally bow to the physical building — on the outer steps —while discarding its core by browbeating and banishing the
Opposition. It is not merely contempt for the Opposition that drives this behaviour; it is belief in the non-necessity of the current institutional paraphernalia.
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This ideological position of the ruling dispensation is coupled with a preexisting characteristic of India’s elites, generally. Right since Independence, they have been smart in forming institutions but unable to live up to their deeper values and significance. Thus, there already exists a culture of bending institutions and bypassing them. Politicians alone are not the culprits.
In civil servants, judges or elites outside formal government structures, there is a formalistic approach to institutions. While governors compete with each other in making a joke of democracy, other institutions are not far behind. Abdication by the judiciary, docility of the Lokpal or servility of investigative agencies may scandalise us. Of late, the skill of the Election Commission to harass voters may appear even more hurtful. All these indicate a flimsy and instrumental approach to institutions.
This coexistence of a culture of not taking institutions seriously and the rise of a regime that believes in a divine purpose that overrides institutional constraint has led to the decline of almost all institutions. Officers of the armed forces attending religious ceremonies in military fatigues, judges performing aarti with the Prime Minister, the PM almost masquerading as a religious head — these are representations of an ongoing process of deinstitutionalisation.
The present standoff will, in the short run, give way to mutual mudslinging and “balanced” commentary. Over the next decade, this small event will be part of a larger process of institutions becoming meaningless and even harmful for citizens’ rights. Once that has happened, the pathway to replacing them becomes easy.
The writer, based at Pune, taught political science
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