Author: L M Singhvi
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 12, 2002
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=7488
Introduction: Time for MPs to to
stop walking out, start walking in and legislating
Parliament in India has gone to
sleep. The two Houses come to life every day at the appointed hour like
a new Rip Van Winkle, only to lapse quickly into another 24-hour slumber.
But We, the People, in whose name Parliament was brought into existence,
are awake and watchful though we are seen merely as helpless spectator.
A Parliament is no Parliament if
it does not parley. To hold parleys is to provide an opportunity for opposite
sides to speak to each other. When the nation's Parliament adjourns day
after day without transacting any business, a fear of creeping paralysis
haunts us, the people of India.
An occasional walkout may be a legitimate
manner of protest and dissent, but to make it a daily ritual is a departure
from the very rationale of Parliament as an institution. If the BJP resorted
to that practice in the past when it was in the Opposition, it was in the
wrong. But that does not redeem the Opposition of today. Two wrongs do
not make either of them right.
During the Third Lok Sabha (1962-1967),
to which I had the honour to belong as an independent member in the Opposition,
there were also occasional walkouts but the House was not brought to naught
by those boycotts and walkouts. I remember Dr Ram Manohar Lohia asking
me to walk out with him and several other members of the Opposition with
whom I shared the view that the indefinite deferment of fulfilling the
promise of the Constitution in respect of Hindi as the official language
of the Union was a breach of faith. Nevertheles, I told him I was elected
only to walk in and not to walk out, and that I intended to oppose the
shortsighted Government move at every step on the floor of the House.
A walkout on an issue is quite different
from bringing the institution of Parliament to a grinding halt. We, the
people are looking askance at the Government and the Opposition. Where
is our commitment to parliamentary democracy? Where is the genius of India
in this sorry spectacle-our genius to evolve a synthesis and to resolve
differences? Where is that statesmanship of which we are so justly proud?
Where is the forum of our conscience?
Parliament is the grand inquest
of the nation. It is the one institution which represents, howsoever imperfectly,
the Government of the People, by the People and for the People. It is meant
to give an institutional shape to the concept of government by consent.
It is our ultimate vehicle of accountability.
Parliament, which includes members
of the ruling alliance and the Opposition parties, is entitled to put the
Government of the day on the mat or in the dock, but it cannot be permitted
to slumber or to become a sleepwalking institution. A dormant and deadlocked
Parliament is a defeated Parliament, disowning its obligation and responsibility
and defying the very ethos of Parliamentary democracy. It is like the Houses
of Parliament dissolved or put in animated suspense.
The leaders of the ruling coalition
and Opposition owe it to themselves and the people of India to restore
and revive the Parliament as an institution and the parliamentary process
as a part of democratic therapy and problem-solving. The mandate of the
people and Constitution is not fulfilled by the daily ritual of parliamentary
walkouts and blackout. That mandate will be fulfilled when the Government
listens to what the Opposition has to say, when the Parliament uses appropriate
devices to inform itself fully on alleged lapses of the Government and
to consider remedial measures proposed by the Government.
Effective reforms and a clearer
delineation of ethical norms would be the way to make Parliament a credible
institution. Endless recrimination would only take us to the blind alley
of no return and to the vicious circle of stereotyped abuse and counter-abuse.
Are ''We the People'' helpless and voiceless? Is Parliament listening to
''We the People''? Are political parties cognizant of the damage which
is being inflicted on Parliament as an institution and on democracy and
rule of law? India cannot afford darkness at noon.
The Indian Express brought to the
fore a public issue for debate and discussion for reform and rectification.
The Indian Express did not intend the derailment of our democracy express.
We must discuss every issue by all means but we are not free, morally and
constitutionally to commit parliamentary suicide.
(Eminent jurist L M Singhvi is a
BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha)
