That the recently concluded Budget session of Parliament was the worst in terms of productivity in a decade cannot be contested. That it could be abducted and held to ransom by clumps of agitating MPs who ran amok, was shocking.
The Prime Minister, addressing BJP MPs on the party’s Foundation Day, accused his bete noire, the Congress, of taking parliamentary proceedings to a new low and throttling democracy. Why others complicit in disruptions evaded the trenchant accusatory admonition is a ponder-worthy point.
Interestingly, the Government and all political parties claim they wanted the House to function. That it did not, despite such professed lofty claims repeated ad nauseum, cannot be explained in any manner that makes even an iota of sense, other than that they comprehensively failed themselves and the people of the country.
It is ludicrous to imagine ~ or pretend, to be more precise ~ that waltzing into well publicised fast-and-yatra mudras at this juncture will work its spin and mask the depressingly disenchanting situation with a positive, or perhaps at a long stretch, a plausible colour or tone.
The disastrously damaging lockjaw and the deep-rooted rot that it eloquently exemplifies, will continue to cast its dark, foreboding shadow, making an already murky environment increasingly vitiated, in the run-up to the next general elections.
This is one Mega Battle of 2019 which politicians of all shades are presently supremely obsessed with.
The sooner it is accepted by all stakeholders ~ a very popular descriptor ~ that the sanctum sanctorum of the world’s largest democracy stands seriously tarnished, the better it will be.
If not for any other reason than to give some traction to a much needed and urgent salvage operation that has unsurprisingly not been attempted so far in the political establishment.
Who, within the political establishment or outside that hallowed perimeter, will make a go for this surgical strike is a multi-trillion-rupee question, going abegging as of now.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman, in his customary valedictory speech stated, “I am pained that it turned out to be an eminently forgettable one because of utter disregard of the mandate of this important Parliamentary institution. At the end of such a long session, what can we show to the people as our contribution towards addressing their concerns and furthering their genuine aspirations? I am afraid, nothing. As a result, we are all losers. This includes the Opposition, the ruling party, the Government.”
Naidu was obviously disturbed at the derailment and total breakdown in communication among various sections of the House leading to the prolonged stalemate.
Presumably much to the chagrin of his party colleagues, he even felt compelled to invoke Jawaharlal Nehru, who supported the utility of the House, despite reservations expressed in the Constituent Assembly! He appealed to members not to indulge in a blame-game for ruining the session and instead collectively introspect for the future.
But one wonders if this will cut any ice. Many, including mainstream media, dubbed it as “emotional”, which decoded reads plain unrealistic, being the outburst of a man only one year into his challenging role and also ~ more importantly ~ one who did not see fit to take disciplinary action and preferred to stay within the comfort-zone of adjourning the House day after day, in the face of persistent unruly scenes and disgraceful disruptions.
The productivity of the Rajya Sabha, it may be recalled, was a pathetic eight per cent. Leader of the Opposition, on a rare occasion, when the House functioned and retiring MPs were accorded a farewell, asserted without any feeling of shared responsibility for the stalemate that the Opposition had to do what it was doing and brought in the cause of Dalits, minorities, women and jobless, among other topical issues, seeking to ensure thereby that they would not be faulted for their obstructionist protest strategies.
The bottom line was of sublime blamelessness. So much for politics of complicity and convenience. The Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha, equally upset and frustrated, advocated amendment of the House rules to empower the Chair to suspend unruly members.
The Lok Sabha rules give the Speaker powers to suo motu suspend such MPs, without a motion to that effect being carried in the House as required in the Rajya Sabha.
With only a few months to retire one may legitimately ask why he had not initiated action on this invaluable suggestion earlier into his tenure, the problem clearly not being a new one. There are no answers.
However, making the correct noises perhaps is also significant in the grim scenario and the Chairman and Deputy Chairman may be accorded some ~ albeit grudging ~ credit for articulating their concerns and suggesting corrective action paths.
In sharp contrast, the valedictory address of the Speaker, Lok Sabha, made barely a passing reference to the 23-day-long drawn out disturbances which yanked down its productivity to a shameful four per cent in the second half of the Budget session.
Its overall productivity for the entire session was a piffling 23 per cent. It took all of 25 minutes to clear the Finance Bill which lists out the government’s planned expenditure worth Rs 96 lakh crores.
Again, an opportunity to discuss the performance of the Government came up through notices of No-Confidence Motions but this was lost, ostensibly because sloganeering AAIDMK MPs made it impossible for the Speaker to confirm the required number of 50 members to support the motion.
Adjournments assumed the new default mode, notwithstanding the provisions of the Rule book to call out errant MPs. Consciously or otherwise, is a matter for analysis and study, though there is unsavory speculation brewing around it.
What drifted across in the Speaker’s speech, almost unobtrusively, during the standard details, was a very gentle counsel to members to keep national issues in mind, while flagging concerns of their constituencies and States.
There was even special mention of 9 hours and 47 minutes of late sittings to complete official business. It may be difficult to wrap one’s head around that “overtime-effort”.
The inauguration of the Annexe of Western Court, the heritage Guest House for MPs got more space than the daily fracas! Everyone was thanked effusively for their cooperation and support. It could have been any other similar rounding-off.
In the face of well-deserved criticism of sheer wastage of scarce national resources, the hyped-up atonement-act of giving up salaries by NDA MPs ~ not all though ~ was hardly impressive. It was rightly perceived as a half-baked afterthought. Coming from well-heeled MPs, ensconced in gilded perks and privileges, this was bound to sputter and flop.
Pending unlikely big-bang change of hearts and minds or the much favoured, unprecedented back-channel dialogues, for starters, in the Monsoon session, let the enforcement of the Rule book begin in right earnest.
There is also a strong case for making them more stringent, including disqualification of disruptors from seeking re-election. Unless the polluter of the institution pays, it will be business as usual.
Till such time as this is seen to be taken in hand, the unhealthy buzz of irrelevance and redundancy of Parliament may become uncomfortably shrill and discordant, with unimaginable implications and fallouts.
Let this not be adjourned.
The writer is a retired IAS officer and comments on governance issues