One of the last matters India’s Parliament attends to is legislative business, which should be defining the very purpose of its existence. We have visibly become a declamatory democracy, pushing other attributes of the democratic order to the background, and not infrequently a denunciatory democracy that revels in raising passionate slogans on anything that displeases us.
Any concern for painstaking lawmaking, or the building of structures or pathways that address matters of national development, is typically relegated to the sidelines.
In such a milieu, it was bold of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday to proceed to suspend 12 MPs — eight from the ruling Congress and four from the Telugu Desam Party — who had been creating unacceptable levels of disorder on the issue of the creation of the proposed new state of Telangana from the beginning of the Monsoon Session of Parliament. The country will cheer the decision as people are fed up with MPs who consider their job done once they have created disorder and disruption in the House.
Nevertheless, at this stage, we can only give the Speaker two cheers while giving her a thumbs up. The reason is that the order restored on the suspension of these 12 members did not yield time for legislative discussion. Indeed, in an ironical twist, the Lok Sabha was suspended for the rest of the day. Why should this have happened?
The need for utilising the time well was obvious. Since so many days have been lost to disruptions on a daily basis, it has been decided to extend the Monsoon Session by a week. Ordinarily, this would be deemed a helpful gesture in the eyes of public opinion, but not on this occasion. Important bills are hanging fire. The Food Security Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill are standout items on the legislative calendar that should have been cleared with a sense of urgency. But our MPs are way too self-indulgent. The Lok Sabha has decided to work this Saturday, but MPs also decided that no major legislative work will be done as many had planned to be away from the national capital. How gross! One wonders therefore why they bothered at all, going through the sham of a Saturday sitting, when nothing of consequence is to be transacted.
The Congress is probably happy with disruption as long as key bills get through. It doesn’t want parliamentary time to be used by the Opposition for ruling party bashing. Equally, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj protested loudly in the Lok Sabha on Thursday against the suspension of unruly members — mainly from the Congress — and the move fell through. The public can do without these games.