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C.V. Madhukar IDRC Photos: tecklesphoto.com

Listen to a clip from Madhukar’s talk

Listen to Madhukar’s entire lecture

C.V. Madhukar believes that the continuing debate between India’s legislature and its judiciary over the interpretation of the constitution has been a “healthy tussle” that is good for his country. On the other hand, he says, “the executive has systematically eroded the power of parliament.“

Madhukar is director of PRS Legislative Research, a non-partisan, not-for-profit initiative that seeks to make the lawmaking process in India better informed, more transparent, and participatory. PRS analyzes issues coming before parliament and provides advice to MPs.

In a public presentation at IDRC on March 27, Madhukar explained with statistics, graphs, and charts the systemic constraints that have weakened India’s parliament in recent decades.

Since 1970, for example, not one private member’s bill has been passed by parliament. This is because the belief has taken hold, somehow, that such bills are tantamount to expressions of non-confidence in the government. “Now,” says Madhukar, “the government has the sole prerogative to introduce legislation that actually gets passed.” This myth has undermined an important function of the parliamentarian, which is to initiate legislation.

Executive convenience

Another constraint is the power of the executive — the prime minister and cabinet — to convene parliament for its own convenience. Governments have cut the number of days that parliament sits to avoid discussion of “uncomfortable issues,” or else they have defined multiple sittings as a single session to exploit rules prohibiting multiple no-confidence motions.

India’s 1985 Anti-Defection Law was intended to help stabilize a chamber too often disrupted by “the opportunistic shifting of loyalties.” This legislation, however, is being enforced by party whips on every bill, meaning that individual MPs can no longer take an independent position on any issue and the assembly is reduced to being “a mere head count.” Meanwhile, the law applies only to MPs, not to parties. This means that, in an era of tiny parties and coalition governments, India’s legislature is threatened with instability once again.

A convention of India’s parliament — rare among advanced democracies — is that ordinary bills are passed by voice vote. Thus constituents have no record of the position taken by their MP on any bill — or even whether their parliamentarian was present in the House during the vote.

Scarce resources

Madhukar makes the case that India’s parliament is particularly disenfranchised because its members — each representing on average of some 2 million constituents — have no research staff to help them analyze and understand the bills coming before them. It was this shortage of research resources that led to the creation of PRS.

IDRC has supported research for development in India since its founding, nearly 40 years ago.

The opinions expressed here reflect those of the speaker alone, and not necessarily those of the International Development Research Centre.

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