India’s feudal democracy

Big issue

We have had a lot of scandals in the House of Commons of late. One MP has had to account for donations received when fighting as a candidate for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party.

I should explain to Indian readers that in the UK they have contests for party posts; merely being the son/wife/daughter of the previous leader is not enough. The MP in question — Peter Hain — had to resign his cabinet post not because he had embezzled any money but only because he had failed to declare it on time.

That is another thing Indian readers should note. Cabinet ministers resign when they are at fault. India has not had such a resignation since Lal Bahadur Shastri
resigned as railway minister in the 1950s for a railway accident. Nowadays the only accident which will invite attention is if the minister’s relatives paid full fare.

Another MP, this time a Tory, had the whip withdrawn because he used his parliamentary allowances to employ his wife and sons. This was not illegal but his sons were at university when they were supposed to be working.

He has now had to stand down at the next election. How many Indian MPs give a proper account of their MPLAD money, let alone their perks? How many MPs are willing to put their income tax returns open to public scrutiny?

British MPs have to reckon with a press which hounds them day and night if they fall foul of any of the rules. Both Hain and Derek Conway, the two MPs exposed, were found out by the newspapers.

When an Indian newspaper exposed the Delhi Assembly for having met fewer than 10 days in a legislative session, the response of the MLAs was not to hang their collective head in shame but to question the newspaper’s right to investigate their behaviour.

Breach of Parliamentary privilege was alleged. This is to say that the MLAs are not servants of the public open to scrutiny, but their masters who can laze around at public expense no questions asked.

Indeed one of the most remarkable developments about Indian democracy is how ineffective and inactive legislatures have become. Lok Sabha meets less than half the number of days House of Commons meets (150 days).

On many days, no work gets done because MPs are rushing to the ‘well of the house’ (why is there no water in the well to drown the MPs who rush?). There are noisy adjournments. In the UK every bill gets a second reading, a committee stage, a report stage and a third reading in each of the two houses.

As far as I can tell even most controversial issues like reservations go through Lok Sabha on the nod after some behind the scenes compromise. So the Indian public knows nothing about the issues or why a Bill was passed.

This was not the way in the 1950s as you can see if you follow, for example, the Hindu Code Bill. But steadily and stealthily, the Executive in India has rendered the Legislature impotent. It has done this by bribing the legislators with perks and privileges as long as the legislators let the Executive get its business done without asking questions.

So trivial tamashas are allowed whereby Parliament does not function but hard work of scrutiny of legislation gets neglected.

The underlying reason for such behaviour is that India has regressed in the last 60 years as a democracy. It was a modern polity in the 1950s and even before Independence had a well functioning legislature. Now India has become a feudal democracy. MPs behave like minor rajas and nawabs.

They think they are above the law and cannot be held to public account. They misunderstand and misuse parliamentary privilege to stifle scrutiny by the public as in the Delhi example.

Of course the Executive even in a coalition government behaves like a feudal
potentate. Cabinet ministers are not free of taint, embezzlers and even murderers survive in cabinet because no one dares to sack them.

Ministers laugh at farmers who commit suicide since they think the farmers are lazy. No one resigns or is sacked. Dynasties rule in most parties and the best way to become MP is to be born in a MP’s household.

Yet powerful as the Executive is, it shuns all controversial decisions. This is why time and again the Judiciary has to step in. From Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the Reservation decision which Arjun Singh sprung on his colleagues and the Ram Sethu, it is the
Judiciary which is asked to sort matters out.

If the legislators were doing their duty instead of rushing down to the well, they could have held the Executive to account. They fail in their duty and the Executive is too gutless even then to make any hard decision so we have to rely on the Judiciary.

The Judiciary is one institution (the Army is another) which has not regressed into feudalism. It tries its best to grapple with its enhanced responsibilities. And what thanks does it get? It is accused of judicial activism. The Judiciary is not just modern but it seems the only institution which is effective despite being underfunded and overburdened. Who keeps the Judiciary underfunded? The Executive.

Indian citizens will have to wake up some day. It is not enough that India is the world’s largest democracy. It has to be also an efficient one. The cure is not with the
political parties. It is with civil society. Aux Armes les citoyens de l’Inde !

The writer is an economist and Labour Party peer.