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Comment by anuraj | Hacker News Reader

While that is true on rhetoric - on practice it is not. While 60% of bills went through parliamentary scrutiny prior to 2014 - the number today is just above 10%. Also Modi has the distinction of passing maximum bills without debate and bypassing the state senate altogether.

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Wow. Do you have the source for the numbers? It's very surprising

I also need clarification on what he means by Modi bypassing parliament to pass his own bills. That’s not how a parliamentary system works. Imagine Tony Blair bypassing the House of Lords and the House of Commons to pass his own bill. Or Obama bypassing the Senate and House of Representatives to pass his own bill. It’s a very strange claim to me.

Not GGP, but I assume they mean that bills were passed through parliament without any real debate or amendments, since the governing party holds a super majority.

The UK has done the same when having a party majority in the House of Lords and House of Commons.

In the US things are different. Even if there is a party majority in the Senate and House, the Filibuster is powerful enough to table the party majority’s bills.

Unfortunately, the way things proceed in India tend to be more crass - where the opposition often tries to physically prevent the tabling of controversial bills. We've had occasions where members grabbed papers off the Speaker's desk, and members routinely try to block proceedings by entering the well of the House and sloganeering. This leads to the Speaker adjourning the session and/or the opposition staging a walkout during the actual vote. It's not uncommon to see parliamentary sessions with only the treasury benches full for the vote.

Maybe India takes inspiration from her colonizers?

"How did the British Parliament become a place where the person speaking is constantly interrupted while the US Congress is one where the audience is quiet?"

Answer: "It didn’t become such a place, it always was such a place. It started life as a collection of people sent by various towns to meet the King to petition him for some action or other. It was a totally formless group of individuals admitted to the King’s larger meeting hall when and if the King permitted. As such they would shout over each other in the attempt to get the King’s attention. Over the centuries it became more formalised and more structured, and a modicum of order imposed. But it has always had the character of a rowdy everybody against everybody discussion rather than an academic debate.

Famous Parliamentarians, particularly Winston Churchill, have enjoyed it being so and encouraged it. The width of the gangway is still two swords lengths, so they cannot engage swords across it, and the cloak rooms outside still have ribbons intended for you to hang your sword before entering the chamber. Parliament values its traditions of being a barely orderly town meeting."

I don't know how accurate that answer is, but it was the top comment in quora. Other sites show similar answers.

Makes sense that it's the system we inherited. For what it's worth, I'd rather have my representatives voice dissent loudly rather than compliance. I wish that dissent was channelled productively rather than show for the TV cameras, but alas, that's what we've got. I do think it's a superior system to the two party US system, especially for such a large and diverse nation like India. It desperately needs reform, though.

I thought Modi's party only had a super majority in the lower house though, don't they need both houses?

The party holds a simple majority (~ 55%) in the Lower House, while the alliance holds a near super majority (~ 63%) - the Indian system holds a super majority at 2/3rds of each house present and voting, not the total membership of the house.

The alliance does not hold the upper house, though they have a near simple majority.

1984: Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress Party got a super majority (77%)

1980: Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party got a super majority (65%)

1977: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a majority (56%)

1971: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a super majority (68%)

1967: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a majority (55%)

1962: Nehru's Congress Party at 73%

1957: Nehru's Congress Party at 75%

1952: Nehru's Congress Party at 74%

If the complaint is, "Supermajorities aren't a Democracy", then it must be agreed upon that India hasn't been been a Democracy under the Congress Party for 32 years out of the 75 years of independence.

> If the complaint is, "Supermajorities aren't a Democracy"

Is anybody actually saying that? For what its worth, I do think super majorities are corrosive long term for the multiparty Westminster style parliamentary systems. There is little incentive for compromise building or genuine debate on bills. It might even work if political parties had visible internal debate and discussion, and we can largely agree that this is not a thing in Indian political parties.

>>Also Modi has the distinction of passing maximum bills without debate and bypassing the state senate altogether

I think this comment can be interpreted that way to some extent. Reads like one person has the power to bypass an entire legislative house. That's not the reality though.

I do agree with you that having supermajority for a long time is not a good thing. Unfortunately for India, that's how it has been historically (Congress for long periods of time and now it looks like BJP)

The original claim was that the senate was bypassed (non-democratic).

A majority in the Senate is democratic if democratically elected etc.

Whereas increasing the power of the executive as is the trend in the USA by bypassing the house / Senate is corrosive to democracy in my view.

The original claim was that the senate was bypassed (non-democratic).

A majority in the Senate is democratic if democratically elected etc.

I'm not sure what this means - that the NDA government could bypass the Rajya Sabha for 90% (the number quoted in the original claim) of bills? That doesn't make sense. I don't see how that is even possible.

The only way that the Rajya Sabha can be effectively bypassed is by the Lok Sabha speaker certifying a bill as a Money Bill (famously, the Aadhaar Bill was a Money Bill). In that case the objections raised by the Rajya Sabha are non-binding on the Lok Sabha and can be rejected by the lower house, and is deemed to have passed after 14 days. I do not think that 90% of bills introduced by the Modi government were Money Bills. So how does the claim of 90% work?

I think anuraj edited his comment. He originally said, “Modi bypasses parliament to pass his own bills.” So our debates are starting to lose context.

I see.

The three routes Mr. Modi government has chosen to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and oversight on the law it creates are by bypassing parliamentary committee or passing them through ordinances or as money bill:

- Explainer: How the government makes new laws less robust by bypassing parliamentary panels: https://scroll.in/article/932186/explainer-how-the-governmen...

- How India’s Govt Is Setting In Place A New Structure For A Dysfunctional Parliament: https://article-14.com/post/how-india-s-govt-is-setting-in-p...

- Explained Ideas: How the Modi govt has been bypassing Parliament: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/how-modi-governm...

- Manmohan Singh raps Modi govt for misuse of 'money bill' provisions - https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ma...

- Aadhaar Act as Money Bill: Why the Lok Sabha isn't Immune from Judicial Review - https://thewire.in/law/identity-of-the-aadhaar-act-supreme-c...

- Jairam Ramesh moves Supreme Court against treating Aadhaar bill as money bill - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/jairam-ramesh-moves-s...

- A 7-judge bench will decide whether amendments to the PMLA could have been made through the Money Bill route - https://www.indiatoday.in/law/story/supreme-court-pmla-verdi...

Source for your assertions?

1. What were the number of bills passed in the "zero hour"

2. Which bills didn't meet the quorum and were passed off as ordinance and allowed to lapse?

3. Which bills were passed bypassing the time honoured state versus federal relations?

You make hollow assertions without backing up your claims.

A sad consequence of one political party having a majority in the parliament. Modi supporters tout it as a harbinger of efficiency bill passing when in reality it's just eroded democracy.

Having a majority in parliament is the normal way of doing things

Unless you support the minority party in which case democracy is definitely not working and/or the voters for the majority party are deluded ;)

Majority rule and minority rights are democracy. Otherwise once vote in everyone is save … might as well no democracy.

Thank you. The minority rights and individual rights are cornerstone, democracy does not mean majority act as Emperors. There has to be strong guaranteed equal rights to all individual and minorities that allows them equal opportunity and recourse.

Its foundation is that all agree what we should all have as rights were we to ever find ourselves the minority, and those become the principles we cannot break and we owe to each individual to uphold. Beyond that, majority can decide, hopefully not stupidly and still considering minority's input, as any good leader should do, consider all data points relevant to best decision making.

To be fair, in many parliamentary systems it is very unusual for any one party to have an absolute majority. In most such systems, the winning party of an election often only wins a plurality of votes, and has to woo other parties to govern - either through a coalition or just a minority government.

India does not have a single party majority either but an alliance majority

The BJP by itself has a simple majority in the Lok Sabha, and makes up over 87% of the NDA's members in the Lok Sabha.

In 2009, Congress Party made up 78% of the UPA's members in the Lok Sabha.

Sure, though the UPA was still short of even a simple majority in the Lok Sabha, and was held up by outside support from the Left Front. The BJP's simple majority in the Lok Sabha from 2013 onwards is the first time any single party has held a majority since the 80s.

A majority in a parliamentary system still allows some room for debate and dissent since MPs are, in principle, representatives of their constituency and not of the party. However, in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line - that is grounds for their disqualification - due to the anti-defection law. Any debate is pure theatrics at this point and the party leadership is free to pass any law they want.

> in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line

Inn what way is this a functioning parliamentary system then?

> In what way is this a functioning parliamentary system then?

You can ask other parliamentary systems the same questions. For example, the Australian Labor Party requires its members to pledge their support for the collective ui decisions of the caucus, which prohibits them from "crossing the floor" as well.

Just as importantly, the Anti-“Crossing the Floor” law was passed in 1985 by the Congress Party under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi (Son of Indira Gandhi, Husband of Sonia Gandhi, and Father of Rahul Gandhi). India’s been functioning under that system for almost 40 years, and I doubt Rahul Gandhi and Congress Party will repeal that law when they come back into party. That’s because it’s their law. They wrote it.

Do Indian MPs explicitly pledge to toe the party line?

Explicitly? No. At no point does a member sworn in as an MP have to then swear to affirm their party affiliation. In practice, however, the Anti-Defection Law deems anybody voting against the will of the party to have vacated their membership of the party, which can then be pursued to strip them of membership of the house.

Is it normal for MPs to speak out against the party line even while voting it?

Not at all. It's highly unusual for a politician to speak against the party line on a bill, if at all. The only time we ever see fracturing, if any, is around the elections, where dissatisfied members may break away or switch parties. It's not uncommon for people to switch allegiances if they were refused an election ticket as the party candidate, or for higher level politicians to form break away factions if refused the Chief Ministerial position, for example. The Anti-Defection Law allows breakaway factions only if at least 1/3rd leave en masse.

It's not a perfect system, but the provisions of the Anti-Defection Law tried to address what was a bigger issue in Indian politics - legislators changing sides for what turned out to be enormous sums of (undisclosed) money. In this climate, the incumbent party could bribe opposition members to prop up the government, and attempts to poach new legislators right after the elections reached ridiculous levels.

For what it's worth, while this does hinder a legislator from voting as per the will of their constituents even where they are at odds with the party line, within the Indian political system there are so many special interest parties that differ from each other in minor details of policy. In theory, the will of constituents could have been made manifest by voting for the policy adjacent party instead.

Again, it's not a perfect system, but it's attempting to fix the obvious issues that arose in India.

It's a feature of a multi-party parliamentary democracy - when a candidate is a representative of a party standing for any elections, and wins it, it is assumed that people voted for the candidate partly because of the electoral promises and visions of the party. Thus, if a party has made a promise to the electorate to enact some major law, and issues a whip in Parliament that all its representatives should support its passage, then they are legally bound to do so. They can still choose to abstain or even vote against it. But then the party can take action against them. (Note that this is only applicable when a party issues a whip, which democratic ones do only for laws it considers important.)

> in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line

That is not true at all. Anti-defection law is applied when elected officials run on a party and once elected decide to change their party affiliation. Not for individual bills.

It's not illegal. But that ensures their eviction from the party and can potentially destroy their political career.

The Anti-Defection Law can very much be applied if a legislator votes against a party whip, even for a bill. There are calls to limit its applicability only to votes on the government, but that is currently not the case.

Quoting from PRSIndia [1]:

Does the anti-defection law affect the ability of legislators to make decisions?

The anti-defection law seeks to provide a stable government by ensuring the legislators do not switch sides. However, this law also restricts a legislator from voting in line with his conscience, judgement and interests of his electorate. Such a situation impedes the oversight function of the legislature over the government, by ensuring that members vote based on the decisions taken by the party leadership, and not what their constituents would like them to vote for.

Political parties issue a direction to MPs on how to vote on most issues, irrespective of the nature of the issue. Several experts have suggested that the law should be valid only for those votes that determine the stability of the government (passage of the annual budget or no-confidence motions).

[1]: [The Anti-Defection Law Explained](https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/the-anti-defection-law-expla...)

So, when majority of the people support one political party that's called eroding democracy?

How did it erode democracy?

Many countries operate like this. It's the downside of having a parliamentary system (which IMO is better than a presidential one). Greece and Japan are good examples. Canada to a certain extent too in the past (with the LPC).

Also for a good chunk of its history, India has been run on super majorities as pointed out in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32346371

In a parliamentary democracy, if the elected party in power has a majority, they can do what you're describing.

In a presidential democracy, if the Senate and House of Representatives is majority Democrats, then yes, the Democrats can do the same. Obama once had majority in House of Reps and Senate as well.

There is one thing that is different. The Filibuster is very powerful in the US. I’m not so sure the filibuster is a powerful tool in UK’s parliament and India’s Parliament.

> There is one thing that is different. The Filibuster is very powerful in the US. I’m not so sure the filibuster is a powerful tool in UK’s parliament and India’s Parliament.

The filibuster isn't a thing in the Indian system, but even in the US it can be broken by a super majority - which the governing alliance in India does have. Besides, the filibuster has rarely been used in recent times - more often than not, it's simply the threat of one.

Might well have the distinction of withdrawing bills without debate a la Farm bill.

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