Pro Tem Speaker Row Shows BJP Has No Desire to Shed Its Adversarial Attitude

There used to be a time when every party had respect for time-honoured parliamentary conventions and traditions.

President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the newly appointed Pro-Tem Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahtab after Mahtab's oath-taking ceremony, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi.

(PTI Photo)

It is futile to hope that the 18th Lok Sabha will function as parliaments are supposed to, with healthy debates, an accountable government, and a responsible Opposition.

Storm clouds, warning of turbulence ahead, had gathered even before the newly elected MPs assembled for the oath-taking ritual as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition butted heads over the appointment of the pro tem Speaker.

A pro tem Speaker is precisely what the Latin term implies. It’s a temporary post and the incumbent’s only tasks are to swear in the new members of the House and oversee the election of the next Speaker. He or she has no power to rock the government’s boat.

With NDA (National Democratic Alliance) partners announcing support for the BJP's nominee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s candidate for Speaker was anyway assured of victory.

Consequently, one wonders why the Modi government turned the appointment of the pro tem Speaker into a prestige issue, got into an unnecessary spat with the Opposition, and started off its third term in office on a hostile note.

Modi could have taken the wind out of the Opposition’s sails if he had conceded this largely ornamental post to the other side and scored brownie points with a wider audience in the process.

The hostilities continued even as Parliament opened with Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi exchanging barbs and setting terms for a fractious, no-holds-barred confrontation in the days and months ahead.

It is clear that the new configuration of the 18th Lok Sabha has not changed the political mood.

Although the ruling dispensation no longer commands the same brute majority of the past decade, it shows little inclination to shed its adversarial attitude towards the Opposition. And the latter, energised by the larger numbers in Parliament, seems hell-bent on channelling all its energies into delegitimising the government in every way it can, even though the NDA, a pre-poll alliance, has a clear, albeit thin, majority.

Parliamentary Traditions Used to be Respected

This is not what the makers of our Constitution had envisaged for the Indian Parliament. When they adopted the parliamentary system of government, based on the Westminster model, they created what they had hoped would be a platform for debate and discussion, an exchange of ideas on matters of national importance, and the evolution of consensus on policy matters.

Over the decades, it has turned into a war zone, more so in the past ten years of Modi's rule, which has created an ideological divide so wide that the chasm is virtually impossible to bridge.=

There was a time when occupants of the treasury and Opposition benches saw each other as frenemies. They had divergent opinions on a wide range of issues but the channels of communication always remained open so that a meeting ground could be found for Parliament to function smoothly and legislation to be passed after proper discussion.

This was true even when non-Congress governments assumed office like the post-Emergency Janata government in 1977 or the United Front government in 1996. Although these governments were born out of deep antagonism for the Congress party, there were enough interlocutors for behind-the-scenes conversations to happen.

The bottom line was that every party was committed to the system of parliamentary democracy and had a healthy respect for time-honoured conventions and traditions.

The Vajpayee-led NDA 1.0 government too maintained the practice of talking with all parties including the Left which was on the other end of the ideological spectrum. Recall the famous meeting he had with Left leaders when the US was mounting pressure on India to send troops to fight in Iraq.

A group of Opposition leaders, including Left MPs, met with him to register their protest. He told them with a smile to raise their voice so that it reaches Washington and helps India resist the demand.

When Vajpayee and another former PM Chandra Shekhar sparred in Parliament, it was a delight to hear them. Chandra Shekhar was scathing in his criticism of Vajpayee but he softened his words by referring to Vajpayee as Gurudev. That was the term they affectionately used for each other.

Much of the conversation between the ruling party and the Opposition was facilitated by the informal setting of Central Hall where MPs from across the spectrum would share snacks, jokes, and gossip.

At times, an agreement to break the deadlock in Parliament was forged in this very hall when the parliamentary affairs minister was seen scurrying around, talking to Opposition leaders in low tones to avoid the eavesdropping media.

Modi’s Attitude is Just Part of the Problem

Modi has not only discouraged his party MPs from going to Central Hall, he gradually shut the place down by restricting access. And in the new Parliament building, there is no equivalent meeting place for MPs to gather informally to break the ice that has frozen relations between the ruling regime and the Opposition.

Today, communication lines between the two sides have broken down. The last person to work the channels was the late Arun Jaitley in Modi’s first term as PM.

However, Modi’s closed attitude to the Opposition and his disinclination to be accountable to Parliament is only part of the problem. It is important to remember that he is the first RSS pracharak to occupy the post of prime minister. He brings with him the ideological baggage of an organisation whose commitment to the parliamentary system of governance based on the Westminster model remains suspect.

Modi himself has made a fetish of decolonising institutions and the Indian mindset. It is only natural that Parliament as we have known it would become a victim of this experiment.

Although he does not enjoy the huge majority he had in his first two terms, it is clear that Modi doesn’t intend to let that hamper him. From the day the results came in, he has behaved as if nothing had changed. As far as he is concerned, Modi 3.0 is a seamless continuum of Modi 2.0.

Yet, there is a new reality he faces in the changed composition of the 18th Lok Sabha — his uncomfortable dependence on coalition partners to keep his government afloat. If he doesn’t find a way to work with his new circumstance, it will put a huge strain on the parliamentary system, bringing it close to collapse.

(Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)