India’s credentials as the world’s largest practising democracy were on full display when the Indian Parliament hosted the 28th Conference of Speakers of the Commonwealth, a loose federation of disparate nations that freed themselves from the British colonial yoke in different years of the previous century. For the coalition government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the third term in a row, having been at the helms for two consecutive terms on his own party’s adamantine strengths, being a host of this conference, came handy to him to burnish his image as a veritable democrat, against his last two terms when Opposition parties felt hapless to vent their grievances on many issues of national importance as they remained scattered with their weapons of dialogue and discussion lacking in due response, leave aside any hearing in and out of Parliament of India.
Be that as this might as a reference point, the Prime Minister did not miss this occasion to set the tone for his renewed faith and recrudescence of love for democracy in his opening remarks at the conference held on January 15-16 in the iconic Central Hall of Samvidhan Sadan, the pristine Parliament building that was turned into a memorial when a brand new Parliament was raised that began its inaugural session in late 2023. So, after an interregnum of close to two years, this major event was held, it prompted Modi to turn nostalgic!
Informing the distinguished gathering of speakers from Commonwealth countries that the place where they were seated holds “immense importance in India’s democratic journey” where over 75 years after Independence, “numerous crucial decisions and discussions shaping the nation’s future” supervened.
The Prime Minister asserted that democracy delivers, belying doom-mongers, because the people remain supreme as they get priority in all development programmes and everything from processes to technology has been democratised. He proclaimed that today India has the world’s largest digital payment system through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for simplified method to ensure benefits reach every one sans discrimination. As the principal theme of the conference was ‘Effective Delivery of Democracy’ the Prime Minister emphatically underscored that India has turned diversity into the strength of its democracy by ensuring that democratic institutions and democratic processes deliver benefits to all the people “with stability, speed and scale”. What he left unsaid was the underlying ‘unity in diversity’ mantra as the biggest asset the nation is credited with!
He, however, rightly, hailed India’s democratic values and described them as a large tree underpinned by deep roots with the country inured to “a long tradition of debate, dialogue and collective decision-making”. But in the first two terms, Modi did not evince much interest or invest his full force on finding democratic solutions to tricky issues and his snap economic decisions like the demonetisation of higher denomination notes in 2016 and the inept rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) without planning and due preparation in July 2017 were held partly responsible for the aversion of private investment to invest or stay invested and overall growth slowdown in the subsequent years of the economy.
Interestingly, the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla reminded his distinguished audience that democratic institutions (name any, Election Commission, Enforcement Directorate or the Central Bureau of Investigation or the tax authorities functioning under the Union Finance Ministry) could stay strong, when they remain “transparent, responsible and accountable to people”. He pertinently pointed out that transparency fosters public trust by ensuring openness in decision-making, while inclusivity guarantees that all voices, especially those on the margins, are heard and respected in the democratic process. He maintained that enhanced discussion directly contributes to greater transparency, accountability and reinforced public trust in legislatures. The irony of Opposition parties raising the issue of institutional abuse and misuse in and out of Parliament, simply scorned by the ruling party, is not lost on the larger stakeholders.
The takeaways from the deliberations of the conference as exemplified by the weighty counsels of the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha need to be balanced and read in proper perspective. In recent times, veteran Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has penned a series of provocative pieces to deplore the declining role of Parliament in bolstering democracy. Even as the Constitution has entrusted Parliament with the remit of making laws for the country under a federal setup, there is the disconcerting spectacle of routine debates and discussions getting distorted or muzzled by pandemonium with tempers and tantrums, marring the proceedings.
It is a stark reality that the parliamentary committees, comprising MPs from both Houses normally go into the minutiae of each legal proposal brought by the government. But of late, Parliament opted for House debate over scrutiny by its committees. In the extant Lok Sabha, it has alluded only 11 out of 42 bills to committees. Big-ticket items like the budget with the demands for grants of various functional ministries guillotined and passed sans instructive debate to enrich the understanding.
It is time our legislators got their broken remit restored to play a responsible and responsive role for our democracy to remain robust and vibrant for the vox populi.
(G Srinivasan is a senior economic journalist based in New Delhi.)
