Precedence,privilege

If “privileges” — the very term and its varied symbols — sit uncomfortably with,in fact go particularly contrary to,the fundamentals of a parliamentary democracy,then the parliamentary committee on privileges is yet to come to grips with it. In a report tabled in Lok Sabha on Wednesday,the panel put forward a litany of suggestions that seek to further the status of parliamentarians in the hierarchy. It wants MPs to climb four rungs up on the Warrant of Precedence so that their position will not come below various ministers in states and Union territories,but instead will be on par with chief justices of high courts. In fact,the committee even wants the red beacon,that symbol of exalted separateness,back atop the cars of the people’s representatives.

The Warrant of Precedence lists a sequential hierarchy — from president to joint secretary — and should at best serve as a practical protocol guide for state and ceremonial functions. The panel’s annoyance with parliamentarians’ place in it and the vocabulary that it uses to express that displeasure — that they are ranked “much below their status and lower to persons not holding constitutional offices and even bureaucrats” — betray the MPs’ inexplicable urge to insinuate themselves into an executive hierarchy. The panel also endorses a draft revised circular prepared by the department of personnel and training on extending “due courtesies” to MPs. It actually wants to insert a penal clause under which “violations of these instructions would entail departmental inquiry”.

However,more than the detail it is the direction of the committee’s deliberations that is disconcerting. Privileges are aimed at ensuring the independence of Parliament,and with India having embraced those that were available to the House of Commons when the Constitution came into force,many date back to the English civil war. Many of those now appear distinctly feudal. Therefore,most mature democracies are engaged in the task of codifying privileges and dropping those that do not serve the democratic purpose. India,however,has yet to get going on this task of sifting the necessary (for instance,those that secure freedom of speech on the floor of the House) from the outdated.