Understanding Nature and Bruises of the Indian Parliament

 

“Political Foundation of India lies upon its initial structure that is the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary.” Since the childhood, we use to study that without their equal participation, a building of democracy can’t be imagined. Each of them performs a significant role, and puts the ‘checks and balances’ on the zenith powers of other.

‘As the role of Executive is to run the state and to execute the proceedings, designed by the Legislative body, The work of Judiciary is to restrict those laws and regulation (drafted by Legislature) and put them within the boundaries of the Constitution’, this is the summaries work holdings of the particular.

Turning my point towards the politics, the only thing which comes in mind by recognizing the term politics is the Parliament and the Government. Parliament is a body which comes under the shadow of Legislature, as its work is to function upon the law making, and deciding the future of the Country in a legal way. Government is something that stands by people as per their choices to rule upon them in legal way.

 

Parliament of India

The idea of the formation of Parliament was genuinely adopted in the colonial period by the Nation Builders. The parliament we see today was an initial ideology of Britain, and as we the people were familiar with this system through a long time, we choose the Parliamentary system for India. The Indian Parliament consists 3 main bodies in it that are-

1.     President  (Constitutional Head)

2.     Rajya Sabha (Upper House/Council of States)

3.     Lok Sabha (Lower House/House of the People)

 

As India goes on the way of Parliamentary system, unlikely USA which is on the parallel path of Presidential system, its going too complex so, we will discuss this by understanding the nature of the both as following-

Parliamentary System (in context of India)

1.     The Constitutional power lies in the hands of President (de jure) but the Executive power stays with the Prime Minister (de facto).

2.     PM and the cabinet remains in the nucleus of power and represents their party.

3.     It is responsible towards the legislature.

4.      Allows the double membership to the cabinet (Executive as well as Legislature).

5.     The base of this system is Westminster Model (British Model).

6.     Cabinet Ministers are chosen from the ruling party and they must be the member of Parliament ( if any minister is not MP, they should attain the membership within 6 months otherwise they will be disqualified)

7.     The absence of Autocracy to a particular leads to forming any law for the betterment of all, not only for few.

Here, we noticed that all of the bullets we saw it day-to-day life, not in the prospective as a political scientist, but also as a common.

Presidential system (in context of USA)

1.     All the power lies only in the hand of President.

2.     President remains the nucleus of power and they don’t represent their political party.

3.     Not responsible towards the legislature.

4.     It doesn’t allow the representative the dual membership, although the President is not the part of legislature.

5.     They have their own ideology and more preference is given to the executive powers.

6.     It goes with the ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ (that mean, the President can appoint any person having part of any background, as per his/her wish).

7.     Autocracy exists there so the hunter comes in the hand of a single individual.

So, here we discussed about both of the system in context of two particular democratic nations, and it concludes that the Parliamentary system provides power to the ruling one but with the restrictions. On the other hand, Presidential system opens the stage for the President, which may be beneficial for a developed country (who have rich sources) but May fails in the context of India.

 

Bruises

As it is mentioned in our Constitution that India, also known as Bharat, is a Union of States. It is a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government. The Republic is governed in terms of the Constitution of India which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November, 1949 and came into force on 26th January, 1950. The Constitution provides for a Parliamentary form of government which is federal in structure with certain unitary features. The constitutional head of the Executive of the Union is the President. As per Article 79 of the Constitution of India, the council of the Parliament of the Union consists of the President and two Houses known as the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha). Article 74(1) of the Constitution provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head to aid and advice the President, who shall exercise his/her, functions in accordance to the advice. The real executive power is thus vested in the Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head.

Heading towards the bruises, the problems and the disadvantages of the Indian Parliament, these are mentioned as follow-

1.     Quality of discussion

The members of the Parliament do not seem to be polite and gentle whenever there is any discussion hour either the discussion upon any proposed bill. Behaving wildly, leads disruption in the proceedings of the House and also, distracts the point into air and the facts start to become baseless. Sometimes the environment turns too aggressive that the Speaker bound to postpone the discussions. Similar scene occurred in December, 2018 while the ‘Triple Talaq’ was discussed and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan postponed it due to the turning hotness in the House.

 

2.     Government of Amateurs

An amateur is such person who has no skills or technique of performing a particular task but gets engaged in it. In Indian polity, the Head of any government choose such unskilled ministers in his/her cabinet, just on the behalf of connections or maybe due to ‘Dabangg’ in personality. ‘An unskillful hand can’t do a Surgery.’ As for example, Nirmala Sitharaman is the Finance Minister of India now, but the same person was Defense Minister in 2014. But, on the other hand, talking about the ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ the ministries have many chances to get a skillful mind for a specific department.

 

3.     No continuity of the Policies

‘Government change, policy changes.’ As the power changes, it brings the new dimensions regard any policy. For example, Congress was fully against GST (Gabbar Singh Tax) and proposed in their manifesto in 2019 general election that if their government will form, they will withdraw such landmark.

 

4.     No proper representation of women

India ranks 20^th from the bottom in terms of representation of women in Parliament. As of 2013, it has been reported of the members of Parliament 11% were women in Lok Sabha and 10.6% in Rajya Sabha.

 

5.     Absence of the annual Calendar

There is no proper detail mentioned (anywhere legally) that the Sessions of the parliament will start with this date and ends on this. Also the holidays are not mentioned, plus it should be clear that a member has to submit his/her presence in the House and there should be the proper ‘Session attends’ system so that a proper presentation of the members may possible.

 

6.     Control by Bureaucracy

The federal distribution of the state power only provides the zenith power to the public’s representative. In simple words, it can be say that the ministers are more powerful than Civil Servants because they are elected by the people. ‘A 12^th class fail man comes and goes on threatening and scolding a well-educated & expert man.’ This also effects the proper functioning of a Civil Servant because he/she has no other course than to follow the order of a 12^th fail man because people choose him!

 

7.     Self-decided Emolument

It is mentioned is 2^nd Schedule of the Constitution,

a.     President

b.     Governor

c.      Speaker and Deputy Speaker

d.     Chairman and Deputy Chairman

e.     Judges of the Supreme Court and High Court

f.       Comptroller and Auditor General of India

The salary of the mentioned above is also decided by the Houses, as it can be said that the salary is also self-decided.

 

8.     Unstable government

Government exists only as long as they maintain majority support in the House. Many a times, when coalition parties come into power, the government is short lived and disputes arise. Because of this, the executive puts all of its focus upon staying in power, rather than worrying about the welfare of people and state of affairs. Such condition occurred in 1979, when a coalition government was formed in 1977 by Morarji Desai (Congress Organisation), Chaudhary Charan Singh (Bhartiya Lok Dal) and Jagjivan Ram under a roof of Janata Party. Due to internal conflicts, the government falls down within 18 months.

 

9.     The Money Bills

All the bills are discussed in both of the houses of Parliament and the President have a Veto power to keep any bill in his/her pocket, except the Money Bill.

The detailed mention in article 110 in the Constitution says that Money bills are proposed as per the recommendation of the president, and it can be only introduced by Lok Sabha. Rajya Sabha can’t restrict the bill nor reject it. In such process, any bill could be worn remotely and passed to it. For example, the Adhaar Bill 2016 was introduced as Money Bill and it was easily passed by the Legislature defining that with this bill, the authority will provide Subsidy direct to individual without middleman and to provide access for the resident to benefits offered by the system. So, it performed as a ‘Loop hole’ and acted as a worry to the system.

 

10.     Less participation of the Commons

In General election of 2019, only 67.1% of people voted. It shows that active participation of the common are not there properly.

 

11.     Corruption

A power holding individual also get engaged in the anti-national activates like corruption that leads the down fall of the indivisibility as well as the morality of the nationalism idea. In March, 2018, it was revealed that the amount of Indian black money present in Swiss and other offshore banks is estimated to be 300Lakh Crores. Might be most of which of the government officials.

 

So, Parliament might be one of the supreme Authorities of the country, although it has some disadvantages, bruises and problems that need to be cure.

Some of the suggestive measures are proposed as follow-

1.     Quality of Discussions can be improved by forming committees in the Houses of the respected members, and asking them for a collective ideology regarding the proceedings, the bill formation and its structure, and the need of amends in the particular bill.

2.     New Criteria should be framed for the qualifications to become a member of parliament so that the quality of MP crowd may enhance and the cabinets may perform more systematically as per their knowledge.

3.     Number of the reserved seats for women in both of the houses should be increased.

4.     A preplanned annual calendar should be introduced, so that the proper functioning of the houses and proceedings may occur within a short time interval.

5.     Proper representation of the Civil Servants should be there so that they may perform their duty honesty for what they are appointed.

6.     Article 110 (which is about the Money Bill) should be modifying so that the loop holes may cover with an official procedure.

 

As we discussed above all about the nature of Indian Parliament, might be, It  needs to reform some of its operation, but in the conclusion, its right to say that a vast country like India is running through Parliamentary form of government, which is best fits with its history as well as the current scenario!

 

 

(Note- These all are independent thoughts, the purpose of this is not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Please put your views in the comment section)