Has the Political Class Failed Us?

A. Surya Prakash
Senior Fellow, VIF

The end of `Operation Jantar Mantar’ by Team Anna without any tangible gains vis-à-vis the fight against corruption and the indications from within government that the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011 may not come up for debate until the Winter Session of Parliament – should come as a major disappointment for all citizens who believe in the pursuit of peaceful and democratic solutions for major problems confronting the country.

With Anna Hazare virtually throwing his hands up and signalling the failure of the tried and tested Satyagraha route, every section of the political class, and this includes the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Third Front and the still nebulous Fourth Front, must be laughing all the way to their respective vote banks. This is a moment of triumph for politicians as a whole because they have successfully beaten back, at least for the moment, the biggest threat that was posed to their corrupt ways. The UPA of course is leading from the front and has been able to stop the anti-corruption movement dead in its tracks.

One year ago, as the Anna Hazare Movement picked up, the UPA government introduced the Lok Pal Bill in the Lok Sabha and repeatedly claimed that it was committed to the passage of this law. Other members of the political class made similar noises and swore that they too were keen on having an independent ombudsman to probe cases of corruption. However, within parliament there was an unwritten agreement among all parties that they should not go beyond rendering lip service to the anti-corruption movement. All parties also believed that by dragging the issue, they could tire out the crusaders. This plan appears to have worked. Twelve months hence, the anti-corruption crusade has become a victim of middle class ennui and the much-talked about bill has virtually gone into cold storage.

Caught in a maze of corruption, the UPA government was not keen on having an independent Lokpal. But it was not alone. It got some overt and covert backing from virtually the entire political class. The government introduced the Lokpal Bill on August 4, 2011 in the Lok Sabha and immediately referred it to a Standing Committee head by Mr.Abhishek Manu Singhvi. This gave the government a much-needed breather and also an excuse. It asked Team Anna and others to advance their arguments before the committee. The Singhvi Committee recommended that the Lokpal must have constitutional status and parliament must take a call on whether to bring the Prime Minister within the purview of the Lokpal. It said group A and group B employees must be brought within the purview of the Lokpal, but the Chief Vigilance Commissioner should have jurisdiction over group C and D staff. The committee wanted MPs to be kept out of the Lokpal’s purview in so far as their vote, speech and conduct in parliament was concerned. The judiciary was also to be outside the Lokpal’s jurisdiction. It suggested a single law for establishment of the Lokpal and the Lokayukras in the states. Once the committee’s report was tabled, the government withdrew the bill it had introduced in August and came up with a new bill – The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011.

After much debate, which drew nation-wide attention, this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha and the government raised the expectations of the people by pretending that it would see the legislation through in the Rajya Sabha as well. However, the government’s real intention – to stall the passage of this legislation – became clear when the bill came up for discussion in the Upper House on the last day of the Winter Session in December, 2011. The Congress Party’s floor managers cleverly ensured that MPs belonging to many small and regional parties raised objections and obstructed the debate. Thereafter, as the debate dragged on, the party took advantage of the commotion in the House and mischievously ensured the adjournment of the House sine die, even though MPs wanted the debate to be concluded. With the abrupt adjournment of the House, the curtain came down on the Winter Session of Parliament, thereby giving the government yet another breather.

However, when the Budget Session of Parliament opened in February this year, the UPA resumed its subterfuge. It promised to complete the legislative process in the Upper House but sprang a surprise on parliamentarians and the nation as a whole last May, when it announced the bill was being referred to yet another committee – a select committee of the Rajya Sabha. Sadly, the BJP became a party to the government’s dilatory tactics. This committee has been given time till the end of the Monsoon Session in September to submit its report. So, even as Anna Hazare and Co have ended yet another indefinite fast in order to live to fight another day, there are indications that the bill will not come up for discussion until the Winter Session of Parliament this year. Going by the prevailing mood in the political class, do not be surprised if this bill too suffers the fate of all previous Lokpal Bills and lapse when the present Lok Sabha is dissolved in May, 2014 or earlier.

In the year gone by, the UPA government has slipped further down on the credibility meter and strangely, it is taking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with it. As the main opposition party, the BJP ought to have been the moral policeman and the standard-bearer for clean governance, but it is even more irrelevant today than it was a year ago. The Congress and the BJP are now seen as two sides of the same coin. The people feel that they are merely engaged in a mock fight and they are tired of listening to the same old rhetoric. Film maker Shekhar Kapur correctly summed it up when he said the debate is not about the failure of the UPA but about the failure of the political system itself.

“India does not need change of government but change in political system. 65 years of current system has created huge divide between the people and governance”, he said in one of his recent tweets.

Parliament @ 60 – A Balance Sheet

A. Surya Prakash

Senior Fellow, VIF

As the two Houses of Parliament celebrate their Sixtieth Birthday on May 13 (they came into being on May 13, 1952), parliamentarians are in a celebratory mood and are preparing for a special sitting on that day, despite it being a Sunday.

However, as all Indians know, the Sixtieth birthday (Shashtaabdi Poorthi) is also a day for some sober reflection on life gone by and on what lies ahead. So, away from the din in the two chambers, there is need for some quite stock-taking on the efficacy, relevance and standing of these two democratic bodies that are at the apex of our democratic structure.

How have these two Houses functioned over the last 60 years? How representative are they? Have they fulfilled their mandate of overseeing the work of the executive, keeping the government on its toes and protecting the interests of the people? Are our MPs still committed to public welfare? Do they take their parliamentary duties seriously? Given the constraints of space, let us attempt to answer at least some of these questions.

Since this is a birthday celebration, it would be in the fitness of things to begin on a positive note. The biggest achievement of the two Houses of Parliament is that they are far more representative of the Indian people now than they were 60 years ago. We can now see the occupational democratization of the Lok Sabha. Almost half the members of the First Lok Sabha comprised of Lawyers (36 per cent), Journalists and Writers (10 per cent) and most of them came from dominant Hindu castes. The political empowerment of hitherto disadvantaged groups has brought about a change over the last two decades and the composition of the Lok Sabha is far more balanced now in terms of occupation, caste and class of members. The First Lok Sabha had 112 non-matriculates. This came down to 19 in the 14 Lok Sabha. Again, the first Lok Sabha had 277 graduates, post graduates and doctorates. In the 14 Lok Sabha as many as 428 members could boast of such qualifications. The political empowerment of the less privileged has also changed the composition of the state assemblies for the better and this in turn has changed the composition of the Rajya Sabha because the assemblies elected Rajya Sabha Members. The Upper House too has begun to mirror the social, political and economic diversity of Indian society.

A couple of other developments that are of a positive nature are the introduction of the committee system and the televising of parliamentary proceedings by Speaker Shivraj Patil in 1993. The constitution of department-related committees has improved parliament’s oversight functions and has nudged MPs towards specialization. The televising of parliament has lifted the purdah on parliament and enabled people to see it in its true colours. It has also improved the sartorial sense of MPs if nothing else!

However, there are many items of the negative list: The Question Hour has lost its zing. The inquisitorial nature of this hour which one saw in parliament up to the late 1980s when ministers trembled at the thought of being subjected to harsh interrogation by the likes of Bhupesh Gupta, Indrajit Gupta, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Madhu Limaye, Piloo Mody and Madhu Dandavate are over. Today, MPs who are ill-prepared or lack the moral courage to pin down ministers appear uncertain and nervous and ministers like P.Chidambaram, who are wanting in democratic etiquette, talk down to them! Many other parliamentary instruments like Adjournment Motions, Call Attention Motions and Short Duration Questions have become rusted. The government is no longer afraid of the opposition, because the latter is not clothed in moral authority any more. Compare this to the situation in 1957 when a question put by Feroze Gandhi, an MP belonging to the ruling party led to the unearthing of the LIC-Mundhra Scandal and the eventual resignation of the then Finance Minister Mr.T.T.Krishnamachari.

Yet another troubling statistic is the decline in the number of sittings of parliament per year. In the 1950s, parliament had an average of 123 sittings, in the 1960s it rose to 138 sittings. This had declined drastically to just 78 sittings in the year 2003.In recent years, the total sittings per year is down by about 30 per cent compared to the situation in the 1960s. The irony is that while the work of government is expanding, the work of parliament which has oversight responsibilities is declining. How do MPs keep a watch on the working of government?

While sittings per year and time allocated for budgetary matters is down, there is a sharp rise in the time lost in disruptions and in the cost of parliament. The 11 Lok Sabha lost 5 per cent of its time to disruptions. This rose to over 10 per cent in the 12 Lok Sabha and 22.40 per cent in the 13 Lok Sabha. In the 14 and 15 Lok Sabha, at least 30 per cent of the time has been lost to disruptions in session after session.

As regards individual MPs, the report card is disappointing. The distance between MPs and the electors is growing; the motto in the 1950s was simple living, high thinking. Now it is high living, no thinking. MPs want to flaunt their power and wealth and stay away from the Aam Aadmi. They want red beacons (lal bathis) atop their cars; they are obsessed with their privileges and have a disdain for ethics; they neglect parliamentary duties; attendance is abysmal during passage of bills and there is high absenteeism in committees (50 per cent). The list is endless and all this has taken its toll on the working parliament.

On the issue of maintaining standards in public life, India’s parliament started on the right note when it decided to expel H.G.Mudgal, a member, for advancing the cause of the Bombay Bullion Association in the House for a price. After much negotiation and haggling, he accepted an advance of Rs 2700 and raised questions of behalf bullion merchants. But that was in 1951 in what is known as the Provisional Parliament that existed prior to the constitution of the two Houses in May, 1952. However, after the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha came into being, a certain laxity crept in when it came to moral and ethical issues. Parliament watched in silence when a member forged the signatures of 20 MPs on a memorandum submitted to the Union Commerce Minister on behalf of liquor importers from Yanam and Mahe, former French territories. The MP was prosecuted, sentenced and jailed by the court, but there was no admonition or punishment by parliament. Sensing public resentment, Speaker Shivraj Patil proposed a Code of Conduct for legislators in the early 1990s and the Privileges Committee of the Lok Sabha followed this up with a recommendation that parliament adopt the Code of Conduct and establish a committee to look into both privileges and ethics. These developments led to the establishment of ethics committees in the two houses, but the committees have by and large remained dormant.

Parliament therefore needed a major jolt to get it out of its stupor and to understand the growing public concern over the fall in ethical standards among MPs. This happened with two sting operations conducted by television professionals in 2005. The first of these exposed a “Cash for Questions” Scam in our parliament. MPs were willing to raise questions in parliament for a price (Rs 30,000 to Rs 1.10 lakh). The tapes aired on a TV channel came as a shock to the people. Swift action followed. The two Houses referred the matter to committees and on the basis of their reports 11 MPs were expelled from parliament. Around the same time, there was another expose vis-à-vis the MPLAD Scheme. A TV channel showed four MPs or their personal staff demanding money to recommend projects under this scheme. Here again, based a committee’s findings, the MPs were reprimanded and suspended from parliament for a while. But the most shocking case was that of a Lok Sabha Member who was into human trafficking. He was caught smuggling a woman to Canada on his wife’s passport. Action was swift. He was and criminally prosecuted and later expelled from the House.

So, what does the balance sheet look like? As stated earlier, the most positive development over the last 60 years is the political empowerment of disadvantaged groups, introduction of the committee system and better policing of members. However, we still need to address the issue of dysfunctionality of parliament (loss of over 30 per cent of parliamentary time to disruptions), MPs’ disdain for law making and the absence of periodic audit of the working of parliament by independent citizens.

A beginning can be made with a review of the practice and procedure of parliament. This has never been more pressing. Though the two Houses have been in existence for 54 years, we have not had an independent audit of the working of parliament and this has contributed in no small measure to the growing hiatus between this elected body and the people. A look at the quality of debates and the efficacy of parliamentary instruments will give us an idea of how far removed we are from that ideal parliament that we all thought we would have after independence.

Finally, since it’s the 60 th birthday of our parliament, let us end our diagnosis on a positive note by borrowing a phrase from Atal Behari Vajpayee. Our parliament is 60, but it will neither tire, nor retire! Instead, it will go on to perpetuity and hopefully become more efficient and more responsive to the aspirations of the people.

Some Bold Ideas from Mr. Purno Sangma

A. Surya Prakash

The former Lok Sabha Speaker Mr. Purno Sangma has recently flagged some weighty issues which are extremely pertinent in the context of the crisis of governance in India, the declining influence of national parties, the decay of institutions, the fractious nature of coalitions and the precipitous fall in the prestige of the office of prime minister.

Some of these issues figure in his book A Life in Politics, which was released by the Vice-President Mr. Hamid Ansari on April 10. They have also been dealt with in a more elaborate manner in a lecture he delivered a fortnight ago at the VIF on ‘The Functioning of Parliamentary Democracy in India’. All these issues are inter-related. With the people opting for diverse political choices across the country, the two national parties that are at the core of the two main coalitions have got weakened. They are now facing greater pressure from regional players within their coalitions and outside. This in turn has injected instability into the coalitions and produced a crisis of governance. The ruling United Progressive Alliance at the Centre is now a pale shadow of the sturdy coalition that ruled this country between 2004-09 and the prime minister no longer exercises the power and authority that he did some years ago. For a politician like Mr. Sangma who has a strong nationalist streak and a desire to pool political and intellectual resources available in the country to try and stem the rot, this is the time to speak up and to press for action. He also offers some out-of-the-box prescriptions that could, especially in a deteriorating social and political environment, gain ground.

The weakening of the office of prime minister is on top of Mr. Sangma’s agenda. He is very clear that the prime minister must be a member of the Lok Sabha – a person who is directly elected by the people to the House. He does not favour Rajya Sabha members becoming prime ministers, because when that happens the authority and legitimacy of the office stands weakened and the prime minister remains beholden either to the leader of his party or to the leaders of a coalition who have together chosen to install him. Mr. Sangma says that under the Constitution, the Union Cabinet headed by the prime minister can survive in office only so long as it commands the support of the majority in the Lok Sabha. Therefore, it makes sense to have a prime minister who is a member of that House. Also, is it not absurd to have a prime minister who cannot vote on behalf of his government in the Lok Sabha!

In the preface to his book A Life in Politics, which is a collection of his speeches, Mr. Sangma dwells on the decline of institutions. He says: “Our institutions are in a state of decay. I am particularly worried about the institution of prime minister. I strongly feel that the prime minister being subjugated by an extra-constitutional `super’ authority is a dangerous precedent. Without any personal bias, I also feel that since India is the largest democracy, it would be in the fitness of things if the prime minister is elected by the House from members of the Lok Sabha. We should also start thinking and debating the desirability and possibility of electing the prime minister directly by the people. With a population of more than 1.2 billion people, India is capable enough of producing an able prime minister”.

Mr. Sangma elaborated on this theme at the VIF lecture on March 31. Over the last 16 years, there have been several instances when the Lok Sabha has failed to throw up a prime minister, he said. In 1996, a chief minister (Mr. Deve Gowda) was chosen for that office. In 1997, it was a member of the Upper House (Mr. Gurjal) and again from 2004 onwards (Mr. Manmohan Singh). During these periods, no member of the Lok Sabha was considered to be qualified for the job. He feels so strongly about it that he says the Constitution should be amended to achieve this objective.

As regards no-confidence motions, Mr. Sangma suggests that we adopt the German system of a constructive vote of no-confidence, meaning that the Lok Sabha can vote out a prime minister only when it has a successor in place. “We can perhaps consider the feasibility of adopting the German model of constitutional/legal provisions for constructive Votes of No Confidence. Under this model, the parliament may express its lack of confidence in the head of government only by electing a successor by the vote of a majority of Members and requesting the President for the appointment of the successor”.

Next, Mr .Sangma talks of coalition politics and federalism. In his view, the functional efficiency of a coalition government will largely depend on whether or not the coalition has put in place coordination mechanisms to “manage” contradictions. He says governance through coalition arrangements has more or less become the order of the day in the multi party system. “In the current (15th) Lok Sabha, forty political parties have their presence. As of now, the present UPA II coalition consists of 11 parties and is supported from outside by 9 parties. Running the government by coalition formations like this is like running a handicapped race. The government gets to be hamstrung in taking effective policy/reform measures”.

Mr. Sangma says coalition partners have their regional, local and ideological agendas which they are often unable to harmonize with the overall coalition programme. While the Government tries to ventilate its helplessness by referring to "coalition compulsions," the constituent partners complain of violation of "coalition dharma" by the government. The success of a coalition will therefore depend on what late Prime Minister V.P. Singh characterized as "management of contradictions". This is feasible only if coordination mechanisms are perfected and made functional within a ruling coalition.

Following the recent elections to five state assemblies, which saw a further fall in the vote share of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, especially in Uttar Pradesh, the regional parties have got further emboldened. The mushroom growth of regional parties has inflicted considerable damage on governance and encouraged the politics of blackmail. How does one resolve this? Mr. Sangma says that the idea that only national political parties should be allowed to contest parliamentary elections, could be explored.

Even more significant is his view on what the national parties should do in the present circumstances. The biggest problem right now is that there is a crisis of leadership. India no longer has an acceptable national leader and the two main national parties are on the decline. The plight of the Congress and the BJP is a matter of concern from a national point of view; he says and hopes that they will become stronger. Meanwhile, there could be a “temporary solution” – the Congress and BJP agreeing to share power and to provide a national government.

Mr. Sangma also focuses on two other issues which are generic in nature. The present electoral system – the-First-Past-the-Post system - has its flaws. In many instances, because of the multiplicity of parties and low voting, candidates who have polled the highest votes but have lost their deposits are declared elected. This system needs a fresh look. Compulsory voting may resolve this problem, but this must be implemented alongside the demand for voters to have the right to reject all candidates, if they wish to.

A clutch of bold ideas from a former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, among them: a power sharing arrangement between the Congress and the BJP to shake off “political blackmailers” and whimsical coalition partners; a prime minister who is directly elected by the Lok Sabha or the people; a constructive vote of no-confidence; institutionalised arrangements for coalition management; compulsory voting alongside the right to reject all candidates. Any takers?

Author is Senior Fellow in Vivekananda International Foundation