In a democracy like India, parliament has become a place for a lot of noise and ruckus over real content and anger over meaningful conversation

In a democracy, parliament is a deliberative place for deep public discussion and reasoned debate to find a common ground on policies, legislation, pressing problems of the citizens, and issues of national importance for more informed outcomes. The key to parliamentary debate is careful consideration of evidence and diverse views through thoughtful dialogue and collaborative decisions that are more robust than simple majority rule. In simple words, parliament is a forum where public opinion is refined and transformed through rational and realistic discussions, leading to opinions and policies with greater public acceptance and effectiveness. This means seeking consensus and fostering cooperation over conflict is the best option to decision-making process. But this is not always the case. 

In fact, in a competitive democracy like India, lately the parliament has become a place for a lot of noise and ruckus over real content, distraction over focused discussion, drama over depth, spectacle over substance, and anger over meaningful conversation. The result is attention-grabbing tactics, accusations, fiery speeches, hard ideological battles, and selective reading of history and past events. When a deliberative institution is besieged in hostile arguments and narratives, substantive debate and consensus-building processes give way to electoral theatrics. What’s disconcerting is not the cacophony but its emptiness; the noise often conceals facts and the full story behind issues, past actions and decisions and their historical context. 

No serious democracy has flowered by discrediting its leaders and pruning reformers. And no democracy has prospered by weaponising history and shouting down or humiliating political and ideological opposition. In the raging battle of ideologies and socio-political conflict between secular and pluralistic ideals embedded in India’s Constitution and the rising force of Hindu nationalism, when persuasive arguments and expert testimony are replaced by a majoritarian approach and criticism is treated as a nuisance, then parliament becomes an arena for elections. Behind the veil of ideology is the battle for the Indian mind, and parliamentary debates these days mirror this very battle of ideas and ideologies to shape Indian society and politics. 

Last week, the debates in parliament on Vande Mataram and electoral reforms did enliven the hallowed institution, a somewhat rare sight these days, but both debates, as expected, produced more heat than light and ended up in blame games and political standstill. In the 10-hour debate on Vande Mataram, proposed by the government to mark 150 years of the national song, the ruling party at the Centre blamed the Congress, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru, for “fragmenting the song”. 

The decision to leave out some portions of the song, which has played a historical role in the expression of national spirit and unity, was a collective decision taken by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in 1937 on the recommendation of a committee headed by Rabindranath Tagore. The CWC, which included Sardar Patel and Subhash Chandra Bose, agreed with the recommendation, which was also endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi. However, the debate, taking liberties with history, was political in nature and largely aimed at creating a controversy and a poll issue for the assembly election to be held in West Bengal early next year, where Vande Mataram was born and carries an emotional resonance. The intent behind the fierce political battle over the past was hard to miss.

Faulting the Congress and Nehru by revisiting the events that surrounded the adoption of two stanzas of Vande Mataram as the national song and framing those events as politics of appeasement was prejudiced and polarising. It was foreseen that the decision to set apart a day each in both houses of parliament for debate on Vande Mataram would not be used to promote national unity but to work up some heat in support of the BJP’s socio-political agenda. It was an electoral operation masquerading as nationalism and a startling disregard for real issues that concern India and its citizens. 

The other debate, on electoral reforms, produced more heat than light and fell to the level of recriminations and accusations, as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has done in recent months since the launch of SIR in Bihar. Everyone, including political parties, agrees that electoral rolls need cleaning up, but the way the exercise is being conducted has raised several questions. For a long time, concerns have been raised about the integrity of the electoral process itself, but the Election Commission (EC) has dismissed them as “grouses of the loser”. Bihar SIR was questioned based on the politics behind the hurriedly done exercise three months before the assembly election. 

The shifting of the onus of enrolment onto the voters led to a net reduction of 44 lakh voters from the pre-SIR list in Bihar. Whether this was a structural and targeted exclusion is difficult to say. The ongoing SIR-2 in 12 states and union territories is feared to be an even bigger disaster than Bihar. The real issue is not SIR but denying voting rights to individuals and communities that lack documents or cannot map their names to the 2002 data on electoral roles. Pruning electoral rolls of duplicate, dead, and permanently migrated voters is fine, but not exclusion of electorally inconvenient voters. 

Public trust in the EC as well as the election process is at its lowest. The influence of money in elections and various other malpractices that impact election outcomes vitiate democracy. If elections are seen mainly as a means to gain political power at any cost, then it is a serious concern and not just a grumble of the loser. That India needs electoral reforms is a given, but the debate on SIR and electoral reforms was dominated by charges and counter-charges on “vote theft” instead of a reflective discussion to acknowledge the deficiencies in the electoral system and find remedies for the problems. 

While the government dismissed the Opposition’s concerns as neither genuine nor legitimate, the issues raised by the opposition parties reflected their position taken in recent months regarding elections, EC, and the SIR. In the end, the debate turned out to be a missed opportunity to discuss and fix the election process and consolidate democracy.