Parliamentary proceedings being disrupted by MPs ?rushing to the well? are events that are familiar by now. It happened for the nth time yesterday. A recent study of parliamentary time lost suggests that 20% of the 13th Lok Sabha?s time was frittered away in protests in the House and marches to the ?well?. This, the 14th Lok Sabha, has cheerfully broken that record. At current rates, it will end with 24% of its time lost in such energetic activities.
Not much debate has happened, and that?s how it is. However, earlier, even the most bitter of phases had managed to maintain the dignity of Question Hour. Even during the Sukh Ram corruption scandal of the mid-1990s, for instance, when the House was held up for days on end, or during the Babri demolition uproar in the winter session after 1992, when parliamentary protest almost assumed the air of a holy ritual, Question Hour was seldom abandoned or trifled with.
This is the appointed hour, before any legislative work or policy debate gets underway, that is reserved for that most important of democratic functions: the asking of questions. Posers to the government can cover anything under the sun, and it is the one opportunity that constituents have to have a direct interface with a minister or government high-up?to get information and even commitments on slippery issues.
Direct posers, on the House record for posterity, and in a hall full of people, can do quite a lot. The most insensitive and deaf of governments can be made to look visibly shifty, or on the defensive, on issues of common concern. Just that, often, is enough.
This is not to say that questions asked in the House are always the best exemplars of the democratic spirit. The ?constituency? some questions claim to represent can suspiciously overlap with special interests that do not take much imagination to identify. Recently, a Rajya Sabha MP who happens to advertise a reverse osmosis water-purifying brand wanted to know about the taxation policy for companies in this business. The MP has pleaded ignorance of the rules that disallow such straight lobbying for things one may have a vested interest in.
If Question Hour is the soul of democratic accountability of every minister to each citizen, it must be a tortured one these days. Even London?s Westminster has seen that soul violated by its infamous cash-for-questions scandal in 1999. It led to the prosecution of MPs who asked questions for a price. That?s when George Carman, as a lawyer for the Egyptian businessman Al Fayed, was quoted as saying in a trial against Neil Hamilton, MP, that you can rent an MP like you rent a taxi.
The UK cash-for-questions scandal took a heavy toll on the reputation of British MPs. In India, too, TV sting operations were conducted on some MPs who succumbed and stated their ?rate? to TV cameramen posing as lobbyists. The MPs were disqualified from the House. However, what is important and perhaps a saving grace in India?s case, is that of the over 100 MPs contacted for the sting, very few actually ended up taking money from the agent provocateurs.
Now, with the Opposition rushing to the well in the current session to demand the ?suspension of Question Hour??to allow more time for protests?we may be in danger of losing that last bit of decorous accountability.
Much is made of the Right to Information Act, but this deserves equal concern. Well before the Act came into being, Parliament had this one hour that let information be ferretted out of secretive governments. As the voter sees it, Question Hour represents an important purpose of Parliament. It needs to be accorded the respect that any institution that constitutes a check/balance deserves. This may be the parliamentary version of the janta durbar of yore, made all the more important by the fact that the democratic experience is meant to last beyond the voting booth. It is a tragic democracy indeed where one press of the button is the end of it.