For the last several weeks, Parliament has followed a rather familiar routine: Both Houses being adjourned within minutes amidst bedlam. Even the Union budget was passed without a discussion. All focus was on the government’s demand for an apology from Rahul Gandhi and the Opposition’s insistence on a JPC into the Adani issue. The result: Yet another washed out session.
At a time when India’s Parliament is in deep crisis, here’s a point to ponder: Both the two architects of the two main parties, the post-Independence Congress and BJP — Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee — shared a common trait: They were both, above all, passionate parliamentarians and diehard Lok Sabha men. Their parliamentary speeches are enormous compendiums of facts and arguments, deployed with wit and flair. Both Nehru and Vajpayee were parliamentarian-PMs, regularly sitting through Question Hour, facing a volley of questions. In Vajpayee’s case his bureaucrats would complain that it was difficult to get him to come to his prime ministerial office as he kept on sitting in Parliament.
Nehru took Parliament so seriously that Vajpayee wrote, “Parliament was Nehru’s sacred temple, his very presence charged the atmosphere in the House, lending it greater prestige, greater seriousness.” For Nehru, Parliament was free India’s supreme achievement, the forum where the republic would be debated into existence. Nehru not only attended Parliament regularly but was extremely punctual in arriving at the House on time. He would stop speaking the minute the then Speaker, GV Mavalankar, rang the bell. Even when not present in the Lok Sabha, he would listen to debates in his room through a microphone and rush into the House if he found a debate interesting.
Nehru sat through repeated attacks during a no-confidence motion brought by Acharya Kripalani and answered each charge. Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia once jeered in Parliament that Nehru was no aristocrat. “I can prove that the Prime Minister’s grandfather was a chaprasi in the Mughal court,” yelled Lohia. Countered Nehru: “I am glad that the honourable member has at last accepted that I am a man of the people.” Always on the lookout for parliamentary talents, Nehru spotted one in the young Vajpayee and telephoned diplomat MK Rasgotra, then posted in New York, to invite Vajpayee to the US and introduce him to eminent people.
It was on the floor of the House that Nehru admitted that his personal aide MO Mathai had committed a wrongdoing and that Mathai should be referred to the Privileges Committee. Mathai was subsequently dismissed. “What Pandit Nehru said in the House over Mathai should be a guidance for future prime ministers,” Vajpayee noted in his memoirs.
Vajpayee prepared his speeches meticulously. When he first became an MP in 1957, then Jana Sangh general secretary Deendayal Upadhyaya deputed a young English-speaking RSS pracharak LK Advani, then working in Rajasthan, to come to Delhi specifically to help Vajpayee research and write speeches to live up to Parliament’s high standards. The Vajpayee-Advani bond was established while crafting a range of parliamentary interventions against Nehru’s government. An Opposition parliamentarian almost all his life, Vajpayee was almost continually an MP for nearly half a century from 1957 to 2005-6 and introduced 22 bills, 20 when he was in Opposition, of which nine were constitution amendment bills.
Contrast this to the way in which today’s politicians view Parliament. Citizens recently saw photos of Parliament ringed by riot police, police vans and barricades. The top leadership of the BJP, including the prime minister, have been accused of hardly attending Parliament and not participating in debates and attendance of Opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi is well below the national average.
Rule 267 of the rules of procedure has been invoked by the Opposition to start a debate on matters of “urgent public importance”, such as activities of China on the border and the findings of Hindenburg Research, but debates have not been allowed. Opposition members are accusing the ruling party of disrupting Parliament and vice versa. Last week, audio from Parliament was switched off for about 20 minutes. There has been little debate on major policy moves such as the farm laws of 2021 or revocation of Article 370 in 2019. Parliament sits for less and less time: In 1956 the number of annual sittings was 151 days. In 2017 this has fallen to just 57 days. In the UK and the US, average annual sittings are 150 days and 100 days. Parliament is becoming irrelevant.
Why has this happened? First, in the 1950s and 1960s — the golden age of India’s Parliament — there was no social media and live TV and MPs relied on Parliament to have their voices heard and build their reputations. Today it’s the media that builds personality cults and social media enables a direct outreach between politician and voter, thus short-circuiting the need for a power-packed parliamentary performance. Second, public life is intensely polarised, making debate almost impossible because of the high level of animosity between government and Opposition. Regrettably, the Speaker seems disinclined to bring warring sides together. In Nehru and Vajpayee’s time, the Opposition, however small, was seen as an equal partner in policy-making through debate and argument. Third, there are few parliamentarian-politicians today like there were in the past, like Nath Pai, Piloo Mody or Bhupesh Gupta, known for their argumentative skills. Fourth, while there is intense personalised enmity between parties, there seems to be a paradoxical policy consensus on welfarist populism and handouts, so there is no substantive contest of ideas on the economy or society.
Without a functioning Parliament, citizens are deprived of getting to know and hear how an elected government is actually functioning from the horse’s mouth, that is, office holders in the administration. When democratically-elected governments are no longer accountable in Parliament, citizens don’t know what they have voted for. India will soon have a gleaming new Parliament building. But democratic institutions are not built by brick and mortar, they require a commitment to the values of constitutional democracy. Here’s some advice for lawmakers who, after repeated walkouts, must have a lot of time on their hands: Perhaps they can spend a few hours reading about Nehru and Vajpayee’s parliamentary history.
Ghose is a journalist and author. Her most recent book is Atal Bihari Vajpayee
