By BK Chaturvedi, Several major weaknesses have undermined governance in our legislative bodies in the last seven decades. The fathers of the Indian constitution intended that these bodies would meet regularly, discuss legislation and enact laws after extensive deliberations. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The frequency of meetings at several state legislatures has been very poor. Members have routinely disrupted proceedings in parliament and legislative assemblies, while political parties have used power and pelf to engineer defections. Ethical values have weakened considerably across the system. All this does not bode well for democracy. Let me elaborate. Debates and discussions are essential for legislative functioning, but this has largely not been the case in this country. The Haryana assembly met for an average of ten days per year during 2009-14. For an average five-year period, the Nagaland and Arunachal legislatures met even less frequently, while UP, Punjab, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa met for 22, 19, 31, 44, 50 and 26 days, respectively, per year on average. At the national level, the Lok Sabha met for only 69 days on average during 2009-14. Contrast this with the US Senate and the House of Representatives, the British House of Commons and the House in France, all of which met for about 126 to 180 days each year. That law-making bodies do not discuss and enact laws with alacrity is difficult to reconcile with the democratic underpinning of this country. Some years ago, there were scenes on national television of MLAs grabbing mikes to assault each other in the UP assembly; even parliamentarians were shown on TV moving around freely waving placards in the Lower House. Of late, it has also become a practice to troop in to the well of the House to disrupt work and for the opposition to render the house dysfunctional. This is a very serious threat to democratic dialogue. The working of state legislatures suffers from another malady. The greed to enjoy power at any cost has led to splits in parties with sizable factions crossing the floor and joining the opposition benches in a bid to grab power. As a result, the ruling party loses majority, and often, the party sitting on the opposition benches, lays claim to a majority with the help of the breakaway faction of the erstwhile establishment. This practice of grabbing power started in Haryana and was nicknamed “Aya Ram-Gaya Ram” after an MLA who often switched sides. More recently, we have witnessed a similar development in Arunachal Pradesh. In many of such cases, allegations are levelled against opposition parties of purchasing defections with bribes. The “sale and purchase” of public representatives was certainly not envisaged by the framers of the constitution. A constitutional amendment was made in 1985 to control defection. This was further strengthened with another amendment in 2003. The provisions for disqualification in the tenth schedule to the constitution now provide that at least 2/3rd members of a political party must merge with another political party so as not to be liable for disqualification as members. Despite this, defections continue. In the 1950s, the political parties had fairly high ethical values. Several political leaders had participated in the freedom struggle of the previous decades and sacrificed their careers and family life in the cause of the nation. However, corruption in our society has increased rapidly in the last six decades and is reflected in the quality of our political leaders, with a very large number of MLAs and MPs coming from a criminal background. In the 1990s, when PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister, several members of parliament from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha were accused of accepting bribes to vote in favour of the rulling party. On other occasions, several other MPs have been accused of accepting money for asking certain questions or abstaining from the House when their questions are taken up. Recently, a member of Rajya Sabha was accused of forging his travel papers to earn illegal benefits and the CBI has filed a chargesheet in the case. The ethics committee of parliament has failed to promote high level of upright behaviour expected from the MPs. The situation in the states is worse. Several measures are needed to improve ethical values in our political parties and strengthen the democratic functioning of the polity. First, a national ethics commission must be set up to keep watch over the moral conduct of our parliamentarians and the members of state legislatures. Any infraction must be reported to a House committee for quick action. Candidates with criminal record must be barred as legislators. Secondly, political parties must work on a code of conduct to automatically suspend legislators entering the well of the House for a week. Thirdly, televised broadcast of House proceedings has failed to promote more responsible conduct among MPs and MLAs. We should instead restrict to broadcasting speeches that are at least three-minute-long.It must be clearly appreciated that the future of democracy is bleak in this country as long as debate and discussions continue to yield place to disruptions in parliament and state legislatures. (The author is a former cabinet secretary and member of the erstwhile planning commission) Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com,
