Having got home from work, I switched the TV on and tuned into a news channel. I could only laugh when I learnt an MP had used pepper spray in the Lok Sabha. I assume most of you burst out laughing too. Our representatives are ridiculed regularly for their antics and absurd averments that, though inimitable, can be reconciled with the locus of legislative rot. We grumble as our expectations tumble to a new nadir. Yet, at times, we are faced with warps that stretch our intellect to inutility, calling on our heroic humor to save our sanity by chucking out our outrage in chuckles. And, with sanity's survival and reason's revival, we are bound to ask questions. I have one on the anti-defection law and party whips.
The turmoil around Telangana's creation was caused majorly by MPs belonging to the ruling party. They had expressed their concerns and disapproval on dividing Andhra at the party fora, only to be ignored by those who decree. The bill for Telangana's creation was introduced. Couldn't these dissenting MPs have tried to convince more of their peers to vote against and, thereby, defeat the bill? Shouldn't they have, in true parliamentary spirit, debated the provisions of the bill and emphasized its infirmities? An affirmative response to both these questions would be either glib or juvenile.
Once the party whip declares the party line and coerces the members to adhere to the decision of the supremos, parliamentarians going rogue risk disqualification. This clearly checks their will to form their own convictions. And, if your constituents are not going to be directly or indirectly inconvenienced by the passage of a bill - the division of Andhra was a primary concern for the Telugu people, and a portent for inhabitants of states like West Bengal and Maharashtra, both of which are enduring clamor for the cleaving off a few districts into separate states - there are virtually no consequences of voting on a bill without conscientiously considering its merits. So, why would you sacrifice your membership in the current Parliament and the opportunity to contest the next elections on behalf of your party at the altar of unrewarding righteousness? Why would you be open to listening to disagreeing peers and then making up your own mind?
I appreciate the reasoning behind the anti-defection law that seeks to keep MPs from switching allegiances with the same impunity that scents their shift in stands on issues. Yet, in cases like the creation of Telangana, where a party leadership seems keen on legislating with an eye on electoral expediency, the anti-defection law enables them to constrain the conscience of elected representatives. One might argue, despite having the freedom, the MPs might still have voted to create Telangana. But, in that scenario, the dissenting MPs would have had a shot at building consensus around their own stance, by winning over their peers with cogent arguments. Preventing the introduction of the bill, or disrupting the house thereafter to block all legislative transaction, would not be the only options available to them to foil a flawed piece of legislation.
Would that have kept the MP from using pepper spray in the Lok Sabha? Of course not! He, after all, only did it to defend himself. Can an outsider have a better perception of the threat posed by his own kind?
Comments