AVOIDING A DEBATE FINANCE BILL PASSED

Just three months back PM Modi broke down in Parliament. Ever since becoming PM, Narendra Modi has provided glimpses of his emotional investment in the country's premier institutional framework for eliminating systemic inequalities.



But the Prime Minister is yet to make a matching investment for ensuring the smooth functioning of Parliament; on the contrary disturbing signals emanate from the ramming through of the Finance Bill, the most important piece of legislation that lays out the country's fiscal road map for a full year. Governments usually resort to such stratagem in force majeure kind of situations. This option of last resort may have become the Modi government's reflexive instinct. The Aadhaar Act was camouflaged as a money bill to bypass amendments suggested in the Rajya Sabha.



The Modi Government's hand at playing the victim card by pointing to concerted attempts at disruption as an excuse for shortcircuiting established procedures comes off as contrived. Breaches of discipline have stalked the corridors of Parliament for decades and as then opposition leader Arun Jaitley put it, "disruption is part of the democratic process". There is an allowance for a bit of gerrymandering.



But governments must have abiding faith in Parliament's curative powers of mediation and consensus building. An obdurate Opposition and a resolute government have often in the past reached out to retrieve the situation; the conferences of all stakeholders in 1992, 1997 and 2001 are testimonies.



Public disillusionment with Parliament is a global phenomenon. Yet this system, for all its warts and wrinkles, is the best guide for our destiny. The Modi government needs to restore people's confidence in Parliament rather than signal disinterest in breaking the legislative logjam. The high octave participation of some of NDA's components in the protests that led to immediate adjournments during the ongoing Session heightens this notion. The Opposition does need to intermittently

play a constructive role but it is in the government's self-interest not to allow political acrimony to spill over into disdain of Parliamentary procedures.



Given the profound problems of governance in the country, consensus building in Parliament invariably helps the overnment more effectively translate its development intentions into reality.