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India’s Silenced Parliament

Sep 11, 2020 Shashi Tharoor

With India facing a raging pandemic, an economic crisis, and mounting security threats, its parliament has a vital job on its hands when it reconvenes in mid-September. But the legislature risks being reduced to a noticeboard for the decisions of a government that does not like to be questioned.

NEW DELHI – After a nearly six-month hiatus, the Indian parliament will reconvene in mid-September at a time of deepening national crisis. But I fear that it may be unable to hold the country’s failing government to account.

Parliament is obliged to meet now, because India’s constitution limits the gap between sessions to six months, and the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all sessions to be suspended since March. With 4.5 million cases to date, India is now the world’s second worst-affected country, surpassing Brazil and Russia and behind only the United States.

Moreover, infection rates are rising, especially in rural areas where testing had not been adequately extended earlier. Fortunately, the COVID-19 mortality rate remains relatively low, at 55 per million people, representing just 1% of deaths from all causes.

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India Besieged
Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

India Besieged

Shashi Tharoor describes a country that, despite having a powerful government, was woefully unprepared for the coronavirus.

7
Modi’s Performance and the Tragedy of India’s Poor
Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty Images

Modi’s Performance and the Tragedy of India’s Poor

Pranab Bardhan argues that the government's pandemic response is following a script that is devastating the country's poor.

10
India’s China Strategy Is Changing
Diptendu Dutta/AFP via Getty Images

India’s China Strategy Is Changing

Shashi Tharoor says the latest Himalayan border flareup is forcing the country to reappraise its “strategic autonomy” doctrine.

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Narendra Modi’s New-Model India
Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images

Narendra Modi’s New-Model India

Shashi Tharoor says the government’s assertion of direct control over Kashmir is a bad omen for all the country’s minorities.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 12 in all 12 Comments on this article

Vibhaker Baxi Sep 17, 2020

It is a bit rich for this spokesperson of the Congress Party, given total lack of any democracy or transparency within its own organisation, to be making hue and cry about the BJP Government. Fact is, Mr Tharoor and 20 odd other senior party stalwarts wrote a private letter to Mrs Sonia Gandhi (de facto owner of the Congress Pvt Ltd) beseeching her to bring in a democratic process to elect the next Party President and its National Executive Council. Not only were they sternly rebuffed but since the main protagonists of this leaked letter have been sidelined within the Congress Part and Parliamentary Party structure. So I don't think it behoves him to lecture the governing Party.
- dushyant dushyant Oct 11, 2020
  
  What has this got to do with the point Mr Tharoor is making? Unless the point is whataboutry. What about the Sun? What about the Moon? What about the Aliens?
  - Vibhaker Baxi Oct 11, 2020
    
    It is double standards! Mr Tharoor is famous for that. At the launch of his book on how Imperialist Britain exploited India of huge amount of its wealth (correct) when I asked him what he thought of the fact that the exploitation by the House of Windsor had been followed by the House of Nehru - same old double standards! The man is just a literary windbag whose values have been surrendered to the Gandhi family.
    - dushyant dushyant Oct 11, 2020
      
      People comapring coke to pepsi would not fall into the trap you are trying to lay. Coke drinkers are not dising pepsi. And those are just acetates drinks. Should a ruling party and opposition not held to different standards in a democracy? Especially when the media would not & civil society would not be let to do its job. And now even the parliament is being subverted.
      
      When the other party is willfully misunderstanding you, it's time to end the debate. Namaste.
      - Vibhaker Baxi Oct 11, 2020
        
        I have seen no dearth of bilious critique of current PM and his Government in the raucous Indian media and social media - unlike the real repression of free speech and suspension of parliamentary democracy under the party calling itself the official Opposition. No newspaper having blank pages on account of censorship and no Opposition Political leaders and press editors in jail! Problem is the supporters if one family one party rule democracy simply cannot tolerate the fact that someone else could win and that by a sweeping mandate. If people disapprove of Modi he will be shown the door at the end of his term! Can you say that about the Gandhi’s?
        
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Rajiv Chopra Sep 15, 2020

This is sad. I believe that this has been one of Modi's biggest strategic blunders. However, his hold over the local media is so strong, that people believe him implicitly.
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jagjeet sinha Sep 14, 2020

SECULAR DEMOCRATS UNABLE TO FIND THE TRUTH
Barking up the wrong tree is a blemish associated with flawed wisdom.
For the Author to keep repeating the same analytics suggests a mind that is blind.
The only legacy that Dynasty bequeathed was The Heartlands bypassed.
The same Heartlands provided Modimandate with 80% of their MPs.
Dynasty designed Economics had Marginalised the Majority for Seven Decades.
The Party President had to escape to The Kerala Model to secure his seat.
Since 2014, if the Author intelligence is to be believed, the Party is in denial.

Without Realignment of Dynasty's Economics bequeathed, more of the same.
Party Analytics seems to conspicuously believe in its Secular Democracy.
Despite their version of Secular Democracy having been humiliated twice.
The Author seems incorrigible - hopelessly believing Hinduism can't be Secular.
As if other Global Religions have copyrighted Secular credentials.

The Marginalized Heartlands will never trust The Gandhi Dynasty Economics.
Yet The Party at no time have repudiated their Economic Geography bequeathed.
Making it easy for The MODIMANTRA to secure another decade.
All that remains is for The Kerala Model to rescue the Mother and Sister.
Because In 2024 - the First Family can only hope for Zero in The Heartlands.
Masterminds of Dynasty surely can produce Analytics that is The Truth.
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Michael Public Sep 13, 2020

Democracy at work can be an ugly thing, but the alternatives are far worse.
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j. von Hettlingen Sep 13, 2020

Shashi Tharoor says six months after the Covid 19-induced recess, India’s Parliament convenes again next week. Meanwhile the country is facing “a raging pandemic, an economic crisis, and mounting security threats. Normally such unprecedented circumstances would “make for a lively parliamentary session.” But the current “legislature risks being reduced to a noticeboard for the decisions of a government that does not like to be questioned.”
The author says amid a “deepening national crisis,” this Parliament may not be able “to hold the…. failing government to account,” because the ruling BJP party under Narendra Modi commands a majority since last year’s elections. The country of 1.3 billion people is the world’s second worst-hit – with over 4.6 million cases – behind the US. Despite having the world’s third highest number of deaths (over 75,000), the rate still “remains relatively low.” But the outbreak shows no sign of abating.
Critics warn that the numbers are incomplete and misleading. Nevertheless Modi still claims the lower death rate is a sign of the country’s success in handling the crisis, and has used the figure to support his decision to ease draconian but ineffective lockdowns. The move devastated the economy, leaving millions of migrant workers without income and further marginalising India's poorest people. As the GDP dropped around 23%, India began rolling back restrictions in May despite soaring infections.
As if it wasn’t bad enough, “a major crisis has erupted on the country’s disputed border with China, where 20 Indian soldiers were brutally killed in June in the icy Himalayan heights of Ladakh. Talk of disengagement has failed to translate into withdrawals, and both sides have sent reinforcements to the tenuous Line of Actual Control that divides their forces.” This week, the two countries’ foreign ministers have met, agreeing to "quickly disengage" from the standoff and to ease tensions.
This announcement came as a surprise, given the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers killed in a violent skirmish with Chinese forces. It brought a sigh of relief for both countries, which are preoccupied on many fronts. India is battling an alarming increase in Covid-19 cases and a sharp contraction in the economy. For China, even temporary peace means one less battle to fight in the international arena. Yet history shows that reaching consensus in the past did not guarantee lasting peace at the border.
The author says, meanwhile, “Pakistan has stepped up its cross-border militancy in Kashmir, which is seething with unrest following last year’s clampdown by Modi’s government. Many increasingly fear that India may be facing a two-front war before the year is out.” Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan had fought two wars over Kashmir. Even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947, the area was hotly contested.
As usual, “the official response to failure is denial, as with Modi’s recent claim that India had lost no territory to China, despite satellite pictures and evidence on the ground that clearly indicate otherwise,” Beijing has “gleefully seized on this statement to deny that it has encroached on over a thousand square kilometers (386 square miles) of land.” Chinese leaders “are not the first to realise that they can get away with anything with this Indian government, as long as Modi can claim victory at home.”
Surrounded by loyalists, Modi is well guarded against parliamentary checks and balances. In the upcoming sessions they will scrap the “Question Hour” – which used to offer MPs the “only opportunity…. to demand unscripted answers from ministers on a variety of subjects. (In response to the outcry, the government has agreed to accept written questions two weeks in advance, to which ministers will provide written answers.)”
Not only Modi “abhors being questioned,” he has not “held a single press conference in India in his six years in office, and is notorious for granting interviews only when the questions are pre-approved. Protesters questioning the government in the streets are charged with sedition, and critics are denounced as anti-national.” A prominent lawyer was “convicted of criminal contempt,” for tweeting his “objections to recent Supreme Court decisions.”
Observers maintain that authoritarianism is playing out in India. The author fears that Modi’s government “will use its crushing majority to pass the bills it wants, particularly those converting a dozen ordinances or executive orders issued during the last six months into law, while sidestepping debate on the issues that matter.” Sadly the ruling BJP merely uses its parliamentary majority as a rubber stamp for its Hindu-nationalist agenda.
India may still “honor the outward forms of parliamentary process,” yet “the spirit of debate, discussion, disagreement, and deliberation will be missing,” because democracy has been hollowed out under the incumbent government.
- Vibhaker Baxi Sep 17, 2020
  
  This is all very good but isn't it just a summarised regurgitation of the original article?
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- Sidney Hart Sep 13, 2020
  
  This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
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vivek iyer Sep 11, 2020

To his credit, Tharoor and some of his colleagues wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi urging change within the sclerotic Congress party whose precipitous decline is responsible for the parlous state of parliamentary debate. Sadly, Tharoor was swiftly silenced. His party seems take the view that, as a rival in his own party said, Tharoor is'“not a politician,...he’s only a guest artist. He is immature and yet to learn to work well within the party framework. It is not right for him to take different positions thinking that he is a global citizen.”

To restore the standard of Parliamentary debate, Congress- previously the default National Party- must reward merit. It must take principles seriously. It is shameful that Congress is propping up the openly Fascist Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. What happened to all the highly qualified people recruited by the Party? How is it that in order to have an impact in Parliament they have to switch over to the TMC or some other outfit? The answer is that Congress can't let anyone shine lest it reflects badly on the reluctant Crown Prince- who lost his own ancestral seat and had to be elected from Tharoor's Kerala- and thus endangers his hereditary entitlement to run, or ruin, what was once the Indian National Congress led by Mahatma (no relation) Gandhi.

Tharoor and other senior Congress men has asked his Party to introspect. They have been, not merely silenced, but publicly humiliated as if they were naughty school-boys. This has destroyed their ability to challenge the incumbent administration.
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