Indian democracy needs action, not drama in Parliament
Gunter Grass famously said that it's the job of a citizen to keep his mouth open. This is a very prudent principle that needs to be followed. Although in the current divisive atmosphere of the nation with vehement opinions about our leaders/political parties among the citizenry, the act of keeping one’s mouth open often entails veering into unproductive rally of comments with no perspective being gained on either side.
However, the puzzling discourse of the day in our polity demands reflection.
The nation needed a strong leader and a steady Centre after the rough patch of policy paralysis, which manifested our economic suffering. We have a strong ambitious leader in prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has undertaken the task of reforming India on a war footing. The ruling BJP has successfully catered to this need for stability; it has been victorious in major state Assembly elections, barring a couple of setbacks.
This bodes well for Modi and his team, enabling them to govern and administer better. As citizens, we appreciate the bold stance of the government for bringing in major reforms to achieve the vision of a developed India.
Nonetheless, our democracy is still fragile; absence of necessary checks and balances endangers the values enshrined in our Constitution. What it needs is a strong Opposition.
In the past few months, a lot of fuss has been made over irrelevant issues in Parliament repeatedly. Just to illustrate, the Congress created furore over the issue of having maximum seats in Manipur and Goa, yet not being invited by the governors to form government.
This was ludicrous, it's an open and shut case if one refers to the constitutional articles of the matter. Maximum number of seats has never been the premise, it's whoever comes up with majority even if it's in coalition. Moreover, it is the governor's discretionary power to invite a party or a group to form government once they stake claim. This was probably the Congress's knee-jerk reaction to subsequent losses in Assembly elections and waning political influence.
The outrage was nothing more than a losing fight for relevance. Creating such ruckus over irrelevant issues drowns out the spaces where it is legitimately needed. This is what we saw in the aftermath of the passage of Finance Bill last week. It was only yesterday (March 29) that a coherent critique of this Bill came from the Left.
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| Absence of a strong Opposition has led to complacency in the ruling party. |
Absence of a strong Opposition has led to some complacency in the ruling party. Otherwise, how do we understand the 40 amendments that got backdoor entry into the Finance Bill? We’re all for a proactive ruling dispensation and have admired most of the reforms that this government has boldly undertaken so far. It's not a democracy if the sanctity of set processes and institutions is to be overlooked. It can be observed that the executive branch has undermined this sanctity repeatedly in the recent past.
A myopic Opposition just bothered by their party’s electoral future, rather than national welfare, further boosts this brassy attitude of the ruling contemporaries.
With the passage of the Finance Bill 2017, the government has set a very dangerous precedent. If a policy is to be roughshod through Money bills like this, what is Parliament for? If there is no discussion space to be provided, how representative is our democracy? Much has been written about it already. As many as 25 non-monetary acts have been amended through this trojan horse of a bill.
Another matter is that of pushing the Aadhar requirement, which also has been subsumed as a part of the Finance Bill 2017, in contravention of the Supreme Court ruling. This is set to deepen the chasm between the executive and the judiciary. It is another matter that the SC is being intransigent on the issue of memorandum of procedure and the executive is not to be solely blamed for that matter. But a middle ground has to be found. Open disregard of SC rulings is only going to burn the bridges.
Secondly, enough concerns have been sounded about the inadequate safeguards of the Aadhar database. The least that the government could do was to put the needed safeguards in place and address the fears before making Aadhar "voluntarily mandatory", as experts are calling it.
No one discredits the multiple benefits that are to be fetched by integrating Aadhar in various schemes, but the way this integration is being pursued is not desirable.
The government's strong stance will, arguably, further embolden when it gets a majority in Rajya Sabha. That's why it is crucial that Opposition leaders start giving priority to national interest and bring to notice issues and practices, which adversely affect our polity.
The ruling party's disregard for adherence to set procedures and norms should not go unchecked.
We have a very long way to go before we can call India an evolved and matured democracy. Erosion of democratic values cannot be the price set on reforms, however beneficial. All stakeholders, parliamentarians and citizens alike, must take note of it.
As Ralph Nader said, "There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship."