Opinion Shashi Tharoor writes: When Parliament becomes a rubber stamp
If the government continues to treat the Opposition as an irrelevant vestige, it leaves many with no choice but to take the argument from the floor of the House to the dust of the streets
The ruling dispensation defends these blitzkrieg tactics under the noble-sounding tagline of a “productive session”.(Illustration: C R Sasikumar) The winter air in New Delhi is not just thick with smog; it is increasingly heavy with the malodorous scent of a decaying parliamentary culture. The recently concluded Winter Session of Parliament has not merely been a display of legislative efficiency, as the treasury benches claim, but a dismaying masterclass in the systematic dismantling of our deliberative democracy. With the passage of high-stakes legislation — most notably the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Bill, the SHANTI (Nuclear Energy) Bill, and the Viksit Bharat-G RAM G Bill (the purported successor to the landmark MGNREGA) — the government has once again demonstrated its preference for the blunt instrument of a legislative majority over the fine-tuned machinery of parliamentary consultation.
The ruling dispensation defends these blitzkrieg tactics under the noble-sounding tagline of a “productive session”. But at what cost does this productivity come? When the velocity of governance outpaces the capacity for scrutiny, the result is not progress, but a precarious descent into an executive autocracy. Today the hallowed halls of Sansad Bhavan are treated less as a forum for the people’s representatives and more as a convenient processing plant for the cabinet’s decisions.
The numbers tell a story that no amount of ministerial rhetoric can mask. In 2024-2025, we saw the surreal spectacle of eight out of 10 introduced bills sailing through both Houses with perfunctory ease. Two of the most transformative pieces of legislation in recent memory — the Insurance Amendment Bill, which permits 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment, and the SHANTI Bill, which privatises our civil nuclear energy sector with scarcely any burden of liabilities — were passed amid the din of protests and the hollow silence of Opposition walkouts.
Even more galling was the bulldozing of the G RAM G Bill. To replace a 20-year-old lifeline like the MGNREGA — a scheme that has proved transformative for two decades, and which saved millions from destitution during the pandemic — with a completely new framework, and to do so in the Rajya Sabha past the stroke of midnight, is an affront to the very spirit of Parliament. Despite the Opposition’s repeated and reasoned pleas to refer these complex bills to standing committees, our requests were summarily rejected. This is no longer an aberration; it is a decade-long pattern of legislative fast-tracking that treats examination as extraneous and conflates nuance with nuisance.
To the uninitiated, committee consideration might sound like a dry, bureaucratic hurdle. In reality, it is the heartbeat of a functional democracy. It is in these committees, away from the performative histrionics of televised sessions, that bills are dissected by experts, questioned by multi-party representatives, and refined into workable law. Data from PRS Legislative Research offers a grim epitaph for this practice. In the 15th Lok Sabha (under UPA-II), 71 per cent of bills were referred to committees for detailed vetting. Under the current regime’s 17th Lok Sabha, that figure plummeted to a meagre 16 per cent.
When we bypass the “second look” that committees provide, we invite disaster. We have seen this movie before. The ill-fated farm laws were rushed through Parliament without committee scrutiny, only to be repealed a year later after prolonged protests on the streets. Lawmaking without deliberation is like building a dam without studying environmental impact; it may look impressive on inauguration day, but it is destined to crack under the tidal pressure of reality.
The decline in committee referrals is exacerbated by the shrinking clock on the floor of the House. In the 17th Lok Sabha, nearly 35 per cent of bills were passed with less than 60 minutes of discussion. Imagine: Laws that will govern the lives of 1.4 billion people for decades are “debated” for less time than it takes to watch an episode of “The B***ds of Bollywood”.
The most egregious tool in this arsenal of silence is the “guillotine”, the practice of passing massive tranches of financial legislation and chunks of the entire Union budget without any discussion worth the name. When we saw this in 2018 and 2023, it signalled a fundamental breakdown. When the power of the purse (the primary check a legislature holds over an executive) is surrendered so meekly, the legislature effectively becomes a glorified notice board for government intentions and a rubber stamp for its wishes.
What is lost in this rush? It is the voice of the stakeholder. On these bills, MPs never heard from insurance employees’ unions, who fear the volatility of 100 per cent FDI; nuclear safety experts, who have legitimate concerns about private liability in the SHANTI Bill; or MGNREGA workers, who are being forced into a new G RAM G framework they neither understand nor helped shape. By shutting the doors of the committee rooms to their testimony, the government is essentially telling the Indian citizen: “We know what is best for you; your input is an unnecessary delay”.
For a democracy to be truly robust, it must protect the “Three Ds”: Debate, Dissent and Deliberation. Without these, the sanctity of Parliament is hollowed out from within. Debate on the merits of proposals, and deliberation over the Opposition’s counter-suggestions, are the lifeblood of parliamentary systems. A regime that relies on its numerical majority to stifle dissent is not a strong government; it is an insecure one, afraid of scrutiny.
If the government continues to treat the Opposition as an irrelevant vestige, it leaves many with no choice but to take the argument from the floor of the House to the dust of the streets. If we see massive protests against the G RAM G Bill in the coming weeks and months, the blame will lie squarely at the feet of those who refused to let MPs shape it in the committee room.
It is ironic that while we celebrate the “Mother of Democracy”, we are presiding over her slow strangulation. It is not the democratic system that has failed the Indian people; it is the rulers who have failed the system. We must not forget that in a true democracy, the minority must have its say, even if the majority ultimately has its way.
The writer is Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Lok Sabha and Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs
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