IT is accepted at all hands that the Lok Sabha, which held its last session on Feb 21 prior to the May general elections, was the least productive in all its history since 1952.

A deadlock between the ruling Congress and the BJP in the opposition put a break on the legislative machine. When, at long last, the bill to create a new state of Telangana was passed by both houses of parliament, it was because the two parties had reached an understanding.

What really shocked a nation used to the sorry decline in the prestige, authority and relevance of parliament, was an ugly incident in the Lok Sabha, a week before its unlamented departure.

On Feb 13, no sooner had Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde introduced the Telengana bill than sheer bedlam broke loose. L. Rajagopal, a Congress member with large investments in Hyderabad and other parts of Telengana, rushed to the well of the house to brandish a pepper canister and spray it all around. The house turned into a battleground as members resorted to assault, broke microphones, and smashed computer screens. Some MPs were rushed to the hospital as they complained of burning eyes and choking.

Ritual denunciations followed. But there is little effort at serious reflection on the malady that has afflicted the legislatures. On the same day, the speaker of Delhi’s Assembly was left “powerless” as, despite four adjournments, he could not control the acts of vandalism in the Assembly.

To be sure, brawls and assaults have occurred elsewhere too; notably in the parliaments of Italy and Japan. Indeed, on Feb 18, the speaker of Britain’s House of Commons, John Bercow, severely criticised what he called the “yobbery” of rowdy MPs screaming in the chamber.

But this is qualitatively different from the malady that has seized Indian legislatures. On Feb 12, two members of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly took off their kurtas during the governor’s address at the inaugural day of the budget session to protest against the state government’s failure to reopen a mill which has been lying closed for 25 years and against the non-payment of arrears to sugar cane farmers.

On that very day, a member of the Assembly of Jammu & Kashmir slapped the marshal three times as he began to remove him from the house, on the speaker’s orders, for unruly conduct. On that day also, the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, witnessed unruly behaviour. Its secretary general Shumsher K. Sheriff was hit on the chin when a member tried to snatch papers from him relating to the Telengana bill.

It would be irresponsible to view these incidents as isolated cases. They reflect a certain outlook on the function of the legislature and its place in the political system. This outlook bodes ill for the future of India’s parliamentary democracy.

Two politicians Madhu Limaye and Raj Narain perfected techniques of obstruction of the proceedings; Limaye, by recourse to pointless points of order and the like and Narain by physical trials of strength with the marshal of the house. But Indira Gandhi did not respect parliament either. Parliament was misled and even lied to.

As the political divide deepened, parliament ceased to be a deliberative chamber. It became a forum for staging trials of political strength; for imposing a party’s programme on the other side. No less a person than A.B. Vajpayee said on Dec 19, 1995: “We don’t want a debate for debate’s sake. Can we remain supine spectators to the process of parliamentary proceedings being reduced to desiccating debates?”

There is, however, a clear difference between those who disdain parliament and those who value it but have a mistaken notion of its true function.

Ivor Jennings corrects the wrong notion. “Party warfare is essential to the working of the democratic system. Yet it will not function if it is carried to extremes.

“A government in control of both houses could effectively stifle the opposition. An opposition that would not accept the majority rule could make the parliamentary system unworkable. In practice, government is by consent and opposition by agreement. Public opinion is the referee of both sides.”

What he added serves as a good warning: “The function of parliament is not to govern but to criticise. Its criticism, too, is directed not so much towards a fundamental modification of the government’s policy as towards the education of public opinion … the government governs and the opposition criticises.

“Failure to understand this simple principle is one of the causes of the failure of so many of the progeny of mother of parliaments and of the supersession of parliamentary government by dictatorships.”

The writer is an author and lawyer based in Mumbai.