Grammar of anarchy

MPs and political parties obviously consider agitation during parliamentary proceedings their genuine function and do not regard this stalling as waste of parliamentary time and public money. However, that a Lok Sabha speaker thought it necessary to propose such drastic measures reflects the gravity of the situation. In August Chatterjee relayed public feedback on the recalcitrance of MPs, cautioning the parliamentarians, “We are increasingly being criticised, we are losing credibility as an institution.”

Dr B.R. Ambedkar, in his concluding speech at the penultimate session of the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949, said: “If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, there are first things in my judgment we must do... to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means that we must abandon the methods of disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha — where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

On an average 20 to 25 per cent of the parliamentary time is being lost during in past few years due to ‘street politics’ within the two houses. There appears to be a consensus on cantankerousness in Parliament. For, the politics of past one decade has given a chance practically to all the parties, barring only a few, to occupy both the treasury and opposition benches.

Consider. In 2006, over 40 per cent of the bills were passed in the Lok Sabha with less than one hour of debate. In two sessions in 2006 only 173 MPs in Lok Sabha actually said anything on the floor of the Parliament on legislative issues. Sadly, almost 65 per cent of MPs said nothing in Lok Sabha on a legislative issue.

... contd.