For years, the decline of parliamentary standards in the country has been lamented. The passage of Bills without adequate or no discussion, the din during discussions, MPs rushing to the Well, the throwing of papers at each other, proceedings stalled for days on end, and allegations of partisanship against the presiding officers. All this has become commonplace.
And yet, by any standard, the present crisis gripping Parliament is unprecedented. There is a notice, signed by 118 Opposition MPs, to move a no-confidence motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker. The Opposition may not be able to get the motion passed, given the numbers weigh heavily in favour of the ruling party, but it does raise questions about the credibility of the Speaker, something the Opposition had avoided over the years.
It was also unprecedented for Birla to admit that he had advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the Lok Sabha to reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address. Birla said he had “concrete” information that “many members of the Congress party could carry out an unexpected act by reaching the spot where the prime minister sits”. In other words, the Speaker was apprehensive that the PM could be attacked and that it was not safe for him to attend the proceedings. This admission was startling.
The second implication was that the government was not in a position to protect the PM in the Lok Sabha. Since mid-2024, the Central Industrial Security Force, and not the Watch and Ward staff, has been looking after Parliament security. If the PM is really not safe in the Lok Sabha, that is serious business.
The Opposition blamed the government for “managing the headlines“, as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had cited former Army chief General M M Naravane’s unpublished book, “Four Stars of Destiny”, when attempting to question the Centre over the face-off with the Chinese military in eastern Ladakh in 2020.
With Penguin Random House clarifying that the book had not been published and General Naravane endorsing the publisher’s position, the situation has become more explosive. It has been complicated by an FIR registered that has turned the discussion from the contents of the book to how Gandhi came to possess it.
On Thursday, a day after Gandhi addressed the House on the Union Budget, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey submitted a notice to move a substantive motion against the LoP for engaging in “anti-India activities”. Dubey has called for the cancellation of Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership and demanded that he be barred from contesting elections for life.
Bitterness has crept in
These developments have had a bearing on the dignity of two prime institutions of Parliament — the LoP and the Speaker — and underscore once again the breakdown of trust between the ruling side and the Opposition that has rendered Parliament dysfunctional.
The bitterness that has come to vitiate the relationship between the two sides makes dialogue that much more difficult. While the government has to ensure Parliament runs smoothly, it is not possible without the cooperation of the Opposition, or without civility in public discourse, which is becoming a casualty.
It is not as if disruptions are new to Parliament. A sight indelibly etched in my mind is of Home Minister Indrajit Gupta, sometime in 1996, sitting near the entrance to Parliament’s Central Hall, holding his head in his hands and exuding helplessness after the shenanigans in the House.
The coalition era (1989-2014) also saw contention convulse Parliament time and again. Regional parties had become national players; their MPs would often stall Parliament to send a message to their party chiefs that they were agitating for the state in Delhi. I remember how RJD MPs opposed the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha in December 2011, with one of them tearing the Bill and throwing it in the House. RJD chief Lalu Prasad sat in the visitors’ gallery that day, hawk-like, to see how his MPs were faring.
In 2016, a riled President Pranab Mukherjee had upbraided MPs to get on with business. “For God’s sake, do your job,” he told the protesting members.
In the past, when the House became uproarious, the presiding officers used to adjourn proceedings and call leaders from the ruling side and the Opposition parties to their chamber to persuade them to exercise restraint and “find a way out”. These attempts often succeeded because the presiding officers still exercised a kind of moral authority. Besides, there were leaders on both sides of the aisle who believed in the sanctity of Parliament and wanted it to function.
Where is parliamentary democracy headed?
Where then is our parliamentary democracy headed? The answers have to come from within Parliament.
While Parliament has been a witness to many a stirring speech over the years, the essence of what the relationship between the ruling side and the Opposition should be was captured in the words of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, then the LoP, in 2014. Swaraj made the speech during the last sitting of the 15th Lok Sabha, just before the House dissolved for elections that turned out to be historic.
“Bhai Kamal Nath,” Swaraj said in her inimitable style, “apni shararat se is sadan ko uljha dete the, aur adarniya Shinde ji (Sushil Kumar Shinde) apni sharafat se use suljha dete the.” (My brother Kamal Nath used to leave this House in tangles with his mischief, and the respected Shinde ji used to untangle it with his decency.)
Swaraj then went on to compliment Sonia Gandhi, whose possible elevation as PM she had once opposed by threatening to tonsure her head. Swaraj thanked Sonia for her “mediatory role” during times of crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his “gentleness”, Speaker Meira Kumar for her “tolerance” (of different views), and L K Advani’s “nyayapriyata (sense of fair play)”, all of which had contributed to the functioning of the House despite problems. But the core sentiment at the heart of Indian democracy, Swaraj said, was that “while we are opponents, we are not enemies”. That made it possible for relationships to be maintained despite ideological and programmatic differences.
Those words resound even today, as relevant for our divided democracy as they were 12 years ago.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide.)
The Opposition blamed the government for “managing the headlines“, as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had cited former Army chief General M M Naravane’s unpublished book. 
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