Representative democracy and Homicidal disruptions – A road to Anarchy                                                                        

Indian parliament witnessed an unprecedented high voltage drama over ‘Telangana issue’ in February 2014. All patriotic Indians felt ashamed with the incidence that took place inside the seat of Indian democracy. Bentham rightly said that ‘tyranny and anarchy are never far apart’. It was an act of tyranny and a road to anarchy, the way the ‘Telangana bill’ was brought in the parliament. No doubt, the ‘Telangana issue’ had become a contentious issue and the members of parliament were having differing and contradictory opinion about the bill. But is it not shameful when congress M.P L. Rajagopal used pepper spray inside the Lok Sabha and other anti-Telangana M.P.,TDP’S Venugopal Reddy who was accused of brandishing a knife? It orchestrated one of the worst disruptions in the history of Indian parliament where disruption has become a byword. Such disruptions are homicidal to the very spirit of parliament.

Deterioration in all aspect has been reflecting in the work culture of parliament. Parliament is an unparalled and is called the temple of democracy. Its decline should be prevented at any cost otherwise Indian democracy is in peril. Representative democracy needs to be distinguished from anarchy.

An overview of developments in parliamentary institutions since the first Lok sabha reveals some disrupting and catastrophe effects in recent years. Subash Kashyap analysed the different aspect of deteriorating work culture in parliament. He said the number of days on which the houses of parliament sit each year and the time that is devoted to transacting business has come down considerably in recent years. Even when they do meet, often little gets done. In the face of disturbances and shouting, the Houses have to be adjourned frequently. Even in parliamentary circles now it is widely recognised that the ugly scenes of indecorous behaviour, indiscipline, pandemonia etc. lead to waste of precious parliamentary time and loss of respect for the supreme representative institution of the people.

In the earlier Lok Sabhas, there was much greater emphasis on discussion of national and international issues. Regional issues and local problems were left to be taken up in State Legislatures. People would flock to hear Nehru initiate debates on international issues, on foreign affairs, etc. which were followed by high level discussions from a national angle. It seems that gradually but increasingly more regional and even local problems are coming to acquire greater relevance and importance for our members. What perhaps may cause the greatest concern is not only the shift in emphasis but the fundamental change in approach and outlook. Sometimes it appears as if we are more and more looking at national problems from regional, communal, linguistic or otherwise parochial angles rather than the other way round.

The representative democracy and parliamentary institutions have endured in India for five decades in a great tribute to their strength and resilience. There has however in recent years quite some thinking and debate about decline of Parliament, devaluation of  Parliamentary authority, deterioration in the quality of Members, poor levels of participation and the like. Today, one notices a certain cynicism towards parliamentary institutions and an erosion in the respect for normal parliamentary processes and the parliamentarians. We have an unending debate in regard to the falling standards in the conduct of legislatures as evidences by poor quality of debates, niggardly attendance in the houses of legislatures, unruly behaviour of members, scenes of pandemonia and the like.

But, it is true that in parliamentary polity, there can be nothing sadder or more dangerous than the representative credentials of the representatives, with some honourable exceptions, becoming suspect and an increasing alienation taking place between the people and their representatives with the representatives losing the respect of the people. Today, we are in a situation where sanctity of means has lost all value, meaning and relevance. If dacoits, smugglers, gangsters and foreign agents can help put us or sustain us in power, we are prepared to compromise with them. We do not hesitate to buy stability of our chairs by bribing fellow legislatures. The people feel that the new breed of politicians in all parties are selfish, power hungry, greedy, dishonest, hypocrites and power merchants for whom the nation comes last and welfare of people is at the bottom of the priorities. Their only concern is to amass wealth and somehow get to and stay in power. They are so busy in the struggle for power that they have no time and energy left for serving the people. In the words of former President R. Venkatarman, they are “no longer competitors in endeavour to serve the nation but are bitter enemies drawn in a battle array.”

            Liberal democracy, based on the consent of the people, must constantly remain answerable to the people who created it. John Locke, who thought of government as a ‘trustee’ of the power vested in it by the people for the protection of their natural right to life, liberty and prosperity, nevertheless, felt that it could not be fully trusted. He wanted the people to remain constantly vigilant. He thought of the people as a householder who appoints a nightwatchman for protecting his house and then he himself keeps awake to keep a watch on the watchman! Jeremy Bentham envisaged liberal democracy as a political apparatus that would ensure the accountability of the governors to be governed. For Bentham, both governors and the governed, as human beings, want to maximize their happiness. Then governors who are endowed with power may tend to abuse it in their self interest. Hence, in order to prevent the abuse of their power, governors should be directly accountable to an electorate who will frequently check wheather their objectives have been reasonably met.

John Stuart Mill, in his brilliant essay on ‘liberty’ declared the aim of his work to elaborate and defend a principle which will establish ‘the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual’. He significantly observed that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’. Mill identified the appropriate region of human liberty as including liberty of thought, feeling, discussion and publication, liberty of tastes and pursuits, and liberty of association or combination, provided it causes no harm to others. He asserted that liberty and democracy, taken together, create the possibility of ‘human excellence’. In his view a system of representative democracy makes government accountable to the citizenry and creates wiser citizens capable of pursuing the public interest.

Jean-Jaques Rousseau, the exponent of popular sovereignty, postulated public accountability of government in a different way. In his concept of the ‘social contract’ sovereignty not only originates in the people, it continues to stay with the people in the civil society. People give their consent to vest their sovereignty in the ‘general will’, which represents their own higher self. As a votary of ‘direct democracy’ Rousseau is convinced that the sovereignty cannot be represented. In his words, “the people’s deputies are not, and could not be, its representatives; they are merely its agents; and they cannot decide anything finally.”  Rousseau commended an active, involved citizenry in the process of government and law- making. He wanted that all citizens should meet together to decide what is best for the community and enact the appropriate laws.

Rousseau was in favour of a political system in which legislative and executive functions should be clearly demarcated. While he wanted the people themselves to constitute the legislative assembly, the executive function was to be left with the government. In his own words, “the people require a government to coordinate public meetings, serve as a means of communication, draft laws and enforce the legal system. Such government shall be constantly accountable to the people for fulfilling the instructions of ‘the general will’. Should it fail to fulfil this obligation, it can be revoked and replaced.  

The test of government, according to Bryce, is the welfare of the people. Thus the standard of merit of any form of government can be judged by the adequancy with which it performs the chief functions of government: the protection from internal and external enemies, the securing of justice, efficient administration of common affairs, and the bestowal of aid to individual citizens in their several occupations. However, Bryce has enumerated six outstanding evils of the existing forms of democracy. (i) the power of money interests to prevent administration or legislation. (ii) the tendency to allow politics to become a trade, entered for gain and not for service. (iii) extravagance (iv) the failure to evaluate properly the skilled man and to abuse the doctrine of equality (v) party politics (vi) the tendency of politicians to play for votes.

It seems that Bryce’s opinion for defects of democracy is very much vigilance in the recent years of parliamentary form of democracy. Reforms and urgent remedial action should be taken for making parliamentary institutions more effective. To bring about a renaissance of democratic faith and parliamentary culture, what is needed is the holistic approach to electoral reforms. It should be an integrated approach to all sectors which includes the overall quality and conduct of all members.

Meritocracy was introduced by Michael Young  implied a system of occupational hierarchy where each person will get his appropriate position according to his qualifications, competence, rather than on the basis of age, gender, race or inherited wealth. It should be made compulsory for the members of parliament to prevent demagogue. At the same time civic republicanism is indispensable rather than civic passivism in the democratic world. It is required to use our votes judiciously to prevent immorality in parliament and to keep our democratic culture healthy.

If we want the all-round development of India, apart from the economic development, the focus must go to our ethical and moral values. We will have to become more and more accommodative in nature as our culture teaches us about the universal brotherhood and treats everybody as our beloved guest (vasudhaiva kutumbakam). The great Indian philosophers and our visionary leaders have shown us the path for comprehensive development. Our long history and cultural background gives emphasis on ‘humanity’ and provides us the guidelines for social harmony and peaceful co-existence. It will not be out of context to say that we really need to implement Gandhi’s concept of spiritualisation of politics and Aurobindo’s concept of mass spiritualisation for bringing renaissance in our parliamentary democracy. This can only provide India the path to become ‘the great Indian nation’ in true sense.

References:

1.      Kashyap, Subhash: Our Parliament.

2.      Kashyap, Subhash: History of Parliamentary Democracy.

3.      Shakdher, S.L. (ed.): Glimpses of the working of parliament, New Delhi.

4.      Verma, S.P.: Indian Parliamentarians: a study of the socio-political background; 1986.

5.      Jain, R.B.: Indian parliament: innovations, reforms and developments; Calcutta, 1976.

6.      Mill, Stuart John: Liberty.

7.      Gauba, O.P.: An introduction to political theory.

8.      Bryce, James: The American commonwealth and modern democracies.

9.      Young, Michael: The rise of the meritocracy.

10.  Rousseau. J.J.: The social contract.