Comment in 150 words: Decline of Indian Parliament (2013, 10 Marks)
The decline of legislatures — James Bryce‘s theme in Modern Democracies (1921), refined by K. C. Wheare in Legislatures (1963) — denotes the drift of initiative and control from the assembly to the cabinet, bureaucracy and courts. In a parliamentary system, where the House is meant to be the nation’s mirror and the government’s daily auditor, the decline shows as a gap between constitutional design and working practice.
Indicators
- Fewer sittings — the first Lok Sabha averaged about 135 sitting days a year; the 17th (2019–24) managed 274 in five years, the fewest of any full term.
- Legislation without scrutiny — committee referral fell from 71% of bills in the 15th Lok Sabha to 16% in the 17th; 35% of bills passed with under an hour’s debate; about 80% of the budget was guillotined.
- Disruption and suspension — the ideal that the opposition has its say and the government its way has given way to obstruction, whichever party sits opposite; 146 MPs were suspended in the 2023 winter session.
- Executive bypass — ordinances, money-bill certification (the Aadhaar Act 2016) and a Deputy Speaker post vacant since 2019. Of 729 private members’ bills introduced in the 17th Lok Sabha, only two were discussed.
- Quality of members — 46% of MPs elected in 2024 declared criminal cases, 31% serious ones; money and muscle shape candidature.
Causes
Executive dominance under single-party majorities; the Tenth Schedule, which turns members into delegates of the whip; centralised parties; members without research support; and televised proceedings that reward performance over interrogation. Courts and street protest — the farm laws were repealed in 2021 after a year of agitation — have absorbed functions the House vacated.
The counter-view
Decline is not uniform. Committee reports remain substantive; the 2024 verdict restored a recognised Leader of the Opposition; and on 17 April 2026 the Lok Sabha defeated the 131st Amendment Bill — proof that Parliament can still refuse. Coalition years (1989–2014) showed more referral and amendment, so vitality tracks arithmetic rather than institutional exhaustion. Socially, the House is more representative than ever — Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta note that inclusion has risen as institutional capacity has fallen.
Conclusion
Parliament has not been displaced so much as underused: its instruments survive while their use withers. A minimum calendar, compulsory committee referral and a whip confined to confidence votes would arrest a decline that ill befits a state claiming democratic leadership abroad.