Political Diary

New Delhi, 5 December 2009

The Question Hour

PARLIAMENT’S ZEROSUM GAME

By Poonam I Kaushish

It was bound to happen. The signs were all there. Another shameful pointer to the lack of seriousness and sab chalta hai attitude with which our MPs take their job, repeatedly vandalise and spew contempt on the temple of democracy. Thus, reducing Parliament to a zerosum game!

Most scandalously, for the first time in over two decades, the sacrosanct Question Hour in the Lok Sabha had to be abandoned when 34 MPs with 17 questions listed against their names were absent last Monday Shamefully, Tuesday fared no better when only 8 out of 14 Members with questions listed were present. Equally embarrassing for the Government, Cabinet Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Azhagiri’s habitually ducks Parliament. In the last week alone he absented himself twice, leaving questions to be answered by his junior Minister

Ditto was the situation in the Rajya Sabha when Question Hour was adjourned twice over. No matter that the queries pertained to infiltration incidents in J&K and North-eastern States and the surrender and rehabilitation of Maoists. Not for our Right Honourables that the Question Hour is the hyphen between the Executive and the Legislature. In this sacred hour any MP can ask any question from the Government and hold it accountable.

Importantly, it serves as a barometer of Government performance at the macro-level and a Minister’s effectiveness at the micro- level wherein the Government through its Ministers is forced to answer questions. The most powerful weapon available to the Opposition to keep the Government on a tight leash. The reason why it is by and large not suspended unlike any another business, except adjournment or no-confidence motions which supercede all business.

Alas, even as our truant MPs throw up excuses of delayed flights and non-receipt of notices for absences, they are ignorant that in 1957, it was a Question Hour query that blew the lid off India’s first major financial scam. When Feroze Gandhi unravelled the Mundhra scandal in the Lok Sabha which led to the resignation of then Finance Minister T T Krishnamachari,

Not only that. Many MPs do not even know what questions are being asked in their names. Asserted Constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap: “Before going to their constituency or elsewhere, they often sign blank forms for babus to fill up when summons are issued. No one wants to be seen lagging behind,” he says. Adding, “When ‘inconvenient’ questions are filled up, MPs may even be taken to task by a Party biggie on the issue. The only way out is to absent themselves.”

Tragically, all this is water of a duck’s back for our Right Honourables. Shrugged of an ‘absconding’ MP nonchalantly, “since the House normally covers only 3.34 questions on an average, I was doubtful that my question, listed seventh, would be taken up. This happens all the time, why make a big deal out of it.” Why, indeed? What to speak of the colossal waste of public money given that it cost’s Rs 28 lakhs per hour to run both Houses of Parliament.

Worse, not a few of our MPs are more interested in asking “lucrative” questions. Remember December 2004 when 11 MPs were expelled in the question-for-money scam. Wherein they sold the dignity and honour of Parliament for fake questions. That too for an embarrassingly petty amounts ranging from Rs.5000 to Rs.55000.  Confided a senior Minister, “But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Nine out of ten cases go unreported.”

Clearly, the absence of MPs during Question Hour is symbolic of the overall erosion of Parliament itself. Equally revealing of how far the rot has spread is the annual audit for 2007-08 of the functioning of 12 Standing Committees to oversee the working of Union ministries during the last Lok Sabha. Wherein many MPs earning the dubious distinction of not having attended a single meeting in the entire year. 

Ironically, there was a mad scramble among our Right Honourables to be on “important” Committees since a seat on these panels gives them leverage with officials. As it stands the meetings are hardly an austere affair, with the Ministries and public sector undertakings required to foot the bill for MPs tours who are invariably lodged in luxurious places and have fleets of cars at their disposal.

Thus, with politics becoming a profitable business MPs are more interested in feathering their own nests. Preferring to lobby and curry favour with seniors. Oblivious that the most serious of Parliament’s self-inflicted limitations is the drastic reduction in the number of days it chooses to work in a year.

Scandalously, the House hit an all-time low when the Lok Sabha functioned only for 32 days in2008.  Notwithstanding the political consensus that Parliament should meet for a minimum of 100 days in a year.  In 2007 it had fared better when it met for 66 days. But all was washed away by the shortest ever monsoon session of barely 17 days with the longest daily adjournments and hardly any work, a mere 64 hours. Typical, the Government and Opposition accused each other for “killing” Parliament.

There are no easy answers to the deterioration of Parliament. But upgrading MP quality is imperative. If IAS officers can go for re-training, why can’t politicians? Rajiv Gandhi had said even pilots need retraining. It’s the same thing. Sadly, there’s no exposure of MPs to orientations on how to go about the House. No training on how or what issues to raise. 

Also, just as happens in normal employment --- no work, no pay, our jan sevaks fancy salaries and perks too should be clipped. And those who are habitual defaulters, should be disqualified, three strikes and they are barred.

Clearly, our Parliament needs to look afresh at its procedures and adapt them to the changing demands, as was wisely done in Britain in 1976. The House of Commons then gave itself new rules and procedures to ensure “control and stewardship over Ministers and the expanding bureaucracy”. What was true of Britain in 1976 is even more true of India today, if we really mean business.

Undoubtedly, accountability in a Parliamentary democracy does not mean merely ensuring that the Government retains its majority in the Lok Sabha. Continued support of the majority is, no doubt, very important for accountability, but accountability goes beyond confidence motions and approval of money bills. It is a day-to-day exercise of continuing assessment of the performance of ministers through questions from the floor of the House.

In the ultimate, how does one restore the strong sense of its own authority to Parliament? What is going to be our basic approach to this continuing distressing and disgraceful spectacle? Are we going to stand as mute spectators as Parliament gets vandalized by our mental midgets. No. We can’t afford it. It is time to cry a halt. If the netagan do not mend matters the public may well choose to take the law into their own hands. More and more people are today saying: Laaton ke bhoot baton se nahin mante (People used to being kicked will not listen to reason.)

Needless to say, the tragedy of our Parliamentary democracy is the absence of probity at all levels of public life.  No doubt action has justifiably been taken against the erring MPs. But a lot still needs to be done. For starters our MPs should stop scoring petty political points against each other. It is in the interest of healthy democracy that unhealthy precedents are not set. Remember, Parliamentary democracy can succeed only when the rules of the game are followed honestly. Else it will become redundant and irrelevant. Our elected MPs need to answer just one question: whose Parliament is it any way? Theirs or the aam aadmis’? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)