Aaj Ka MLA

First, Uttar Pradesh legislators threw parliamentary norms out of the window when they jumped on tables and hurled objects at the state governor
inside the assembly. Next, it was the turn of MLAs in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa to violently disrupt assembly proceedings. Things turned so ugly in the Andhra assembly that marshals had to physically throw out unruly MLAs.

This, of course, is not the first time that such things have happened inside state assemblies. In UP itself, 33 MLAs were injured in clashes inside the House in 1993; in 1997, microphones and chappals were hurled at the chair by opposition MLAs. Unfortunately, such behaviour is not restricted to state assemblies. The Indian Parliament is only a shade better. There have been occasions in the recent past when MPs have traded punches inside the Lok Sabha. Besides, disruption of Parliament is routine with MPs raising slogans or rushing to the well. And we had the unseemly spectacle last year of MPs displaying wads of cash inside the House, which they claimed were bribes paid to them to vote for the government during a trust vote.

As a result, Parliament and state assemblies are anything but the forums for debating and legislating public policy they are meant to be. This is shown in the figures for business conducted by the House. The number of sittings of Lok Sabha has come down from an yearly average of 124 in the first decade of 1952-61 to 81 between 1992 and 2001, a decline of 34 per cent. The picture in state assemblies is no better with an average of 20 to 50 sittings a year. The degeneration of parliamentary behaviour is a reflection of the state of Indian democracy, where many democratic norms and practices are yet to settle into the fabric of political life, even as regularly-held elections give us all a sense of complacency about the health of our polity.

Over the years, democracy has succeeded in empowering marginalised communities, such as Dalits, and electing them to Parliament and positions of power. But this has not been accompanied by a strengthening of the norms of democracy and respect for institutions such as Parliament. The unruly scenes in assemblies are a vivid symbol of this failing. There could be many reasons for the frailty of democratic norms in India, but the most important is the failure of our education system to teach and instill respect for the rules of democracy. While civics is taught in most schools, it is not considered an important subject. One glaring result of that neglect is the way we shrug at the deplorable antics of our elected legislators.

Source: Times of India