Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, exasperated with MPs repeatedly defying his orders and creating a din in Parliament, last week accused parliamentarians of “burying democracy in the country”. Live television coverage of the Lok Sabha proceedings has made us all conscious that standards are falling in an institution which is expected to set the benchmark for dignity and decorum. The telling visuals of BJP MPs pulling out wads of currency notes in Parliament last July, even as the Speaker kept admonishing them to sit down, is reflective of the sorry state of affairs in the House.

Till last year, the 14th Lok Sabha had lost 415 hours and 6 minutes in interruptions and adjournments, which was almost 20 per cent of parliamentary time. The Lok Sabha secretariat calculates that it costs Rs 26,000 a minute to run Parliament. But the loss in terms of the work which Parliament is supposed to perform was far greater. Parliament is a forum for the people’s representatives to analyse, discuss and bring to public notice the government’s acts of omission and commission in all spheres.

But are the MPs alone responsible for the loss of working hours in Parliament? Many parliamentarians believe that the Chair needs to be less rigid and schoolmasterish and adopt a more conciliatory approach. Some believe that a speaker should resign from his political party before assuming office, so that the charge of partisanship cannot be levelled against him. This is the practice in the House of Commons and was followed by earlier speakers such as Sanjiva Reddy and G.S. Dhillon.

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