INDIAN Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh sounded the alarm about the functioning of the world’s biggest democracy on Friday (September 7) after parliament broke up at the end of an almost entirely wasted legislative session.
Opposition lawmakers from the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who are demanding Dr Singh resigns over a coal scandal, staged noisy protests on Friday that capped three weeks of disruption in both houses of parliament.
Faced with MPs shouting and waving papers, the parliamentary speakers of both chambers called an end to proceedings shortly after midday, bringing to a conclusion the second of three annual sessions.
In a statement afterwards, Dr Singh lamented that parliament had been “totally paralysed” at a time when India faced serious problems, from containing ethnic and religious tension to reversing a slowdown in the economy.
“Parliament should have debated all these issues,” he told reporters outside the heavily-guarded building in New Delhi.
“We take pride in the fact that since independence we are a practising, functioning democracy. What we have seen in this session is a total negation of that.”
Parliamentarians have deliberated on legislation for just 25 out of a possible 120 hours during the monsoon session which began on August 8, according to PRS Legislative Research, a New Delhi-based independent study group.
Only four bills were cleared by both houses, despite as many as 30 being listed for consideration on issues such as pensions, land acquisition, tax reform and corruption.
Three of them were cleared inside 20 minutes on Monday (September 3) without any discussion, in line with a trend since 2009 according to which one in every five bills is passed after a debate of less than five minutes, PRS says.
The dysfunction of this parliament, which also wasted an entire session in winter 2010 due to protests by the opposition, has fed a sense of legislative deadlock and drift in a country that is home to 1.2 billion people.
Dr Singh’s left-leaning government, run by the Congress party, has been beset by corruption scandals over the last two years and is struggling to stem a broad slowdown of the economy, which expanded by just 5.5 per cent in the April-June quarter.
The dates for the next session of parliament have not been finalised but it is expected to start in November or December.
The BJP defended its stance, saying the protests were necessary and that obstructing parliament was a legitimate tactic – and one adopted by the ruling Congress party when it was out of power.
“We are fighting for a cause,” explained Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in parliament, at a press conference.
“Bills were not passed in the house and we are aware of that, but the fight against corruption is more crucial for the nation,” she added.
The BJP wants 79-year-old Dr Singh to resign over the findings of an investigation by the national auditor into the allocation of coal mining rights to private companies since 2004.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says the government should have auctioned the rights to the highest bidder, instead of gifting them away in a process that “lacked transparency and objectivity”.
The coal scandal directly implicates Dr Singh, who denies any wrong-doing, because he served as coal minister as well as prime minister from 2004-2009.
Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, who has been in parliament for 32 years, lamented the decline in standards in the assembly, where a fight broke out this week between two regional MPs.
“When I first came into parliament, no matter how contentious it was, there was a serious debate,” he told reporters. “Now the polity is looking at different approaches. It does no good for our democracy.”
