The prime minister the other day slammed the opposition for its conduct, including tearing papers and making ‘derogatory’ remarks on the way bills have been passed, as he accused them of insulting the legislature and the Constitution.

The act of snatching of the IT minister’s statement and tearing, and hurling the shreds in front of the Chair in the Rajya Sabha is certainly not the best example of parliamentary conduct and deserve condemnation. Almost the same scenes were enacted in the Lok Sabha as well. Bad enough. But it is doubtful whether Modi’s objection to TMC member Derek O’Brien’s tweet, criticising the passage of 12 bills in 10 days, ‘at an average time of UNDER SEVEN MINUTES per bill’ wondering whether it was ‘passing legislation or making papri chaat!’ is sustainable.

‘Papri chaat’ is just as humble as the pakora, which the prime minister had cited in the same parliament house as part of the exposition of his famous ‘pakora economics’ to highlight the contribution of pakoda sellers to national wealth. If pakoda can occupy such exalted status in the national economy, why not papri chat? No one has so far come up with a valid reasoning to establish that papri chat is made in an un-parliamentary manner; nor how pakora is more parliamentary than the chat cousin.

But passing bills without any debate can in no way be more preferable than chat-making, or to be more respectable, pakora ‘manufacturing’, irrespective of how nearer the ‘factory’ is to Parliament House.

Parliamentary democracy is all about decision on the basis of debate. If there is no debate, there is no need for parliament session to be convened. Already the whip system has reduced the role of the members in participating in the decision making process because they cannot go against the stand of their respective parties. They could at least debate issues of their concern, irrespective of whether their suggestions were to be accepted by the government.

It costs tax-payers’ money for every minute of parliament’s sitting. The government has already released details of how much money has been lost due to disruption of parliament proceedings. Until the end of last week, the house has only functioned for 18 hours out of the scheduled time of 107 hours since the start of the monsoon session, resulting in a loss of more than Rs 133 crore.

If the government is committed to parliamentary democracy, as it claims, one fails to understand what prevents it from allowing a debate on the Pegasus snooping incident, the root cause of the current disruption in the house proceedings, especially when it claims it has nothing to hide.

The fact is that it is the government’s intransigence on the issue that is behind the current trouble. If Modi and his government are so much worried about smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy, it should allow the issue to be debated openly so that the truth comes out. The inability to allow debate can only be seen as prompted by the government’s fear that the truth might come out.

It is inexplicable that the government is extra sensitive to anything relating to the Pegasus controversy, which is holding it back and this is raising more suspicions about the role of the government and egging the opposition on to further harden the stand. The government is not ready to own up the acquisition of the spyware from the Israeli company, but at the same time it does not categorically rule out such a possibility. It insists there has been ‘no unauthorised’ use of Pegasus to snoop on political leaders, journalists and others, which incidentally points to the possibility of authorisation in cases where the government suspects risk to national security.

It is only reasonable to expect the government to come clean on the issue and the best way to do this is to allow full-fledged debate in parliament, which the government is refusing to do and still complaining about scant respect to parliamentary democracy. There cannot be anything more ironic. (IPA Service)