February ending is arguably the time when the heads of every Indian turn towards the prime institution of the country, one behind whose walls the budget is made. I also being one of those ordinary Indians, happened to view one of those sessions.
When I switched on , the budget session in parliament is just over and the channel started to show the footage of the state assembly session of earlier that day.I followed for some time and noticed some funny and rather serious flaws in the way our parliament/assembly works.
No body seems to be interested to listen to what others have to say, regardless of whether they want to speak or not. I always thought of our democratic process as a highly efficient method to bring out the injustice in government's policies, if any, but the majority of the legislators seem to be very passive. Of the half - an - hour , the only discussion that went on , is whether it is appropriate to talk on the particular topic they are debating about and who should talk first. Seems absurd, but in that half- an -hour only 3 persons made any meaningful conversation,, and some others went on shouting. Of course,what could anyone expect if some 250+ highly competitive people are kept in one hall and discuss about the problems of the state which could be hundreds in number in about 8 hrs every day?. Even if every one takes 10 mins to talk, not even 50 people would get a chance to speak. Even in the group discussions i attended so far in college, my instructor allows only 10 people and suggest anything beyond that would lead to utter chaos, not only for him to track score but also for anyone to make any sense out of it, as dividing time would be a very difficult problem. And especially how could any meaningful discussion go on if the people present are those who had done everything to come to power and would do anything to make their point including shouting or even use physical power??.
After watching this confusion and fuss that prevailed, I wondered if any good decision really comes into practice. If more than half of the people are disinterested and uneducated people vary from 10 - 20 % of the people what role could they play in deciding to support or make a point except blindly following the others of their own party? Do we really need all the disinterested members to take part in each and every discussion in the assembly of which they have absolutely no idea and which is a mere waste of time? The speaker says he would allot time for everyone and tries to pacify shouting people, but how can he divide a limited time among so many and when most members don't want to speak?
I've happened to come across of something called a delegated legislation in the British Parliament and thought why could we not have the same process. There, the minister in charge is given special powers to make laws on not very high priority matters in his portfolio. Thereafter, the parliament sits and reviews the decisions made by him amending them if necessary. Why could not we have a similar system where people can be divided into different functional areas like education, infrastructure etc. and each one would review the task at hand and come to a decision which can be reviewed by the entire parliament in an entire sitting? In the entire sitting if only a system of voting is set up and if any other member has something to say he is to be allotted a slot in a special session. Through this method, each of the legislators can actively participate in the legislative process. Besides it would avoid the hasty decision making of the current method as evident from our budget session when our finance minister simply reads through the entire document, obviously a brain child of some official in the ministry. Each of those mini assemblies comprises both the ruling and opposition party members and if members are continuously shuffled, there would be uniformity in participation of members in decision- making.Though, problems of representation would occur in a particular decision, the second phase of being accepted by everyone would take care of this. Besides, more bills can be introduced by private members as they at least tend to be heard in the mini assemblies of which they would be part of. This system of dividing up opposition in functional lines is already present in the US where for every cabinet minister there is a shadow cabinet who is particularly concerned about the portfolio his counterpart is assigned to.
Evidently, mine is a very stupid solution, inspired by a multi-processor paradigm in computers, but I definitely think the current system is flawed and to follow the same system of about 50 years, in this tech era when problems have become magnified hundred fold. If the more intelligent section of the country work, there could definitely be a feasible solution that could help our parliament into a more responsible law- making body. Of course, this also has to be coupled with an increased % of educated, highly competent and responsible people in the assembly, of which I'm sure is not very far away.
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2 comments:
yes, it is a flaw in our political system. But it is the ideal of our democracy that every person has a say in everything.
Since we have such a large democracy and such an uneven development accross regions, sectors that any solution or policy is wither opposed for opportunistic politics or for the develepment of ppl of the region the representative belongs to.
Higher litereacy and even development would make our parliament efficient and a place of gentlemen.
Ha. you are right, that is why, the solution proposed is we have an entire sitting that has no scope for much fuss. Whatever the opposition has to say, they will say it through their representative in the mini parliament, as that representative really doesn't talk in the present system. This is just to enhance speedy legislation.
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