It has been fun to watch the parliament being adjourned again and again and there is a growing thinking that no debate is itself a debate! That the stalling of the working of the parliament is itself a sort of civil disobedience and that both the opposition and the ruling parties are entitled to it - protest at each other by showing their angst.
Such thinking cannot be faulted prima facie, but as always there is always (ain’t it always?) a different mad.madrasi take on that.
On the face, such disruption is always better than a civil unrest or an opposition protest outside the parliament or even a national strike.
If you don’t believe me, isn’t it better than the violence in Bangladesh against eviction or the British students hike against fee hike or the French strikes against pension cuts?
All of them incidentally, coincidentally occurred within the last 30 days or so. Isn’t the mere disruption of the parliament better than any of those?
OTOH, I am worried. If you notice a common point in all of them it is that the concerned proposals have not been debated or have gone through a parliamentary due-process of approval - they have all been decisions on the part of the executive without taking the parliament into confidence - in simple terms, to garner the support of the mood-of-the-people.
None of them have been put to vote on the floor of the house where opposing views could be aired and a compromise solution reached whereby all sections can accept a solution which is deemed just OK - while entirely not satisfying everyone, doesn’t leave anyone *totally* grieved.
Isn’t it what democracy is all about? Accepting the wish, the will, of the majority without injuring the rights of the minority?
It is my first concern and hence my fervent wish that all the people of India who believe in democracy - the ruling combine, the opposition, the parliamentarians, the media, the political big-wigs and not the least the highest levels of judiciary - to think and talk sense so that whatever decisions are made, does have parliamentary approval. For whatever the faults, this process is the best we have and the parliament is the best place to judge the (current) mood of the people.
My second concern is that the present ruling combine might fall into the trap of governing by Ordinance. I have nothing against Ordinances, per se. The provision of Ordinance is provided for the government of the day to quickly move on issues which need to acted on immediately, without delay that would be encountered in calling for and obtaining a parliamentary approval. But such Ordinances, in my view, and I am sure in the views of the founding fathers, should be restricted to times of great danger and necessity - like natural disasters (Haiti) or War (Kargil / North Korean attacks). The resort to Ordinance should never be the order-of-the-day.
If a democracy starts to live on Ordinances or Presidential decrees for day to day functioning, there would be great danger to the democracy itself. Perhaps it is the reason why democracy has failed in Pakistan, why despite being democracies for most of their existence, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are not its beacons, not to say anything about the Latin American democratic republics - like Venezuela or Chile or Argentina.
OTOH, take the case of the US, where the incumbent President is thought to be on his ‘lame-duck’ period, just because his party lost its majority in their lower house - the House of Representatives. Even the then President Bush obtained Authorisation to Use Military Force against Terrorists soon after 9/11 before the War On Terror - the reason why he still sleeps easy. I mean, you need a parliamentary approval to use force on terrorists? We here routinely use force on even suspected criminals - provided they are not scammers.
:-/
Just imagine, if the 2G Telecom proposal had been debated in the parliament and an appropriate resolution had been passed (at that time), would the PM or the ruling party be in such dire straits now? All the PM had to affirm to the Apex Court (not that in such circumstances the Apex Court would have even deemed of querying) was the parliamentary approval.
So simple, but so simple that even eminent people forget the basics - get it done through the parliament.
Last, but not the least of my concerns is that, by this continuous disruption of the parliament, seeing that their day to day lives are not affected by such disruptions, should the people come to decide that the parliament itself is irrelevant or that it doesn’t reflect adequately the thinking-of-the-people, it would be a great injustice - to the humankind as a whole - after all this democracy is one billion (or one sixth of humankind) strong.
Though the UN (along with P-5) may not yet wish to give us our due in the form of a permanent-veto-carrying seat, if this Indian democratic republic breaks down, I suspect the UNO and the whole world’s equilibrium would be shattered - something for them to keep in mind, the next time they talk about UN reorganisation.
Take care people, the Indian experiment is too precious to be frittered away.
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