Play, Participation, and Politics - A peek into the Indian Parliament.
This week’s post comes to us from Nagarajan Chandru, a former Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament and a Political Science enthusiast.
One of the seemingly hardest things to make interesting for children, is the world of politics. At least, that’s how it is made out to be. We’ve grown up with teachers making incredibly fascinating subjects, utterly dull and lifeless. History is full of breath-taking stories but reduced to memorizing dates. Physics is full of jaw-dropping experiments but reduced to symbols on a page. I can go on. Similarly, the world of politics widely influences the lives of our children. But we make sure to keep them out of it. Now that I think of it, we keep ourselves and other adults out of it too.
My name is Nagarajan and I’ve been obsessed with the world of politics for as long as I can remember. This obsession made me eventually be selected for the prestigious LAMP fellowship in 2015. LAMP stands for Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament. I worked closely with a member of parliament and was stationed in Delhi. It was a larger than life experience the first time I walked into the Indian Parliament.
Before me, I saw aspiration, heritage, and the infinite possibilities that lay in its corridors.
In the time I spent working there, I’ve learned so much about everything that goes on inside. In this article, I am going to attempt to break down the parliament’s functioning so that the next time it is in the news, it will at least be a little easier for you to follow or understand and make it that much easier for you to explain it to the children in your lives.
But first, a fun story.
Important voting in parliament is done by a process called division, where votes are recorded digitally. Members vote by either pressing a red button, for no, or a green button, for yes. But to press either one of these, they must simultaneously press a third button. Without which their votes are not recorded.
Why not just have a single button?
Members sit very close to each other. It is important for both their hands to be occupied at the same time so that you don’t just reach over and vote on behalf of another unsuspecting member.
Now back to the Parliament.
The word finds its origins in French and was first used around the 1300-1400s. It literally means “to speak”. It later acquired the meaning of a formal conference /assembly.
Fun fact: A group of owls is collectively called a parliament.)
The parliament consists of two houses Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha. Citizens, once they turn 18, can participate in elections to elect members to the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha members are representatives of States, so they are elected by the legislative assembly of the state. For example, the Rajya Sabha members representing the state of Karnataka will be elected by Karnataka’s Members of Legislative Assembly(MLA).
There are three sessions of the parliament in a year: the Budget Session, the Monsoon Session, and the Winter Session.
On any usual day, the schedule of parliament is as below:
11 am – 12 pm: Question Hour.
12 pm - 1 pm: Tabling of legislative papers & bills and raising matters of urgent importance under the Zero Hour or Special mentions.
2 pm – 6 pm: Legislative Business.
Members of parliament have three clearly defined roles:
To debate and vote on legislation introduced in parliament: Governments govern by introducing bills in parliament, which on being passed becomes a law. There is a specific path that a bill undertakes to become an act:
A minister introduces a bill, for example, The Personal Data Protection Bill, which controls how companies can use data they collect from us.
The house refers the bill to the specific parliamentary committee, overseeing that area, in the case of the above example the bill was sent to a special Joint Parliamentary Committee.
The committee report is circulated among all the MPs for their study.
The bill then comes back to the floor of the house.
Amendments, if any, to specific sections of the bill can be introduced by members.
Each clause of the bill is then discussed and voted on after which the entire bill is put to vote.
Once it passes, it proceeds to the other house where it follows a similar path.
Following which it is submitted for Presidential Assent. After which it becomes an act of law and is published in the Gazette of India.
To scrutinize government functioning through the parliamentary committees that they are a part of and through the various parliament interventions that they are entitled to use, like:
Asking questions to or seeking information from the council of ministers during what is called a ‘Question Hour’, for which they can get a written reply or an oral reply. Let’s say the MP wants to know how much the government has spent in building new civic infrastructure, like roads, in her constituency or state, this is the way to get that information.
Raising matters of urgent public importance in what is called the ‘Zero Hour’. Suppose there were flash floods in a particular district because of incessant rainfall the previous night. The MP can use the Zero Hour to bring this issue to the parliament’s attention so that the appropriate departments of government can take necessary action.
To ensure the effective allocation of resources across areas of importance through the central budget:
The Union Budget is an event that the entire country looks forward to. The budget is discussed in the parliament during the Budget Session. The budget session is split into two. The chain of events can be a little difficult to follow so I will use the parallels of personal budget planning to help you follow better:
The finance minister firstly presents the annual budget in parliament and every MP gets a copy of the same. Like how at the beginning of every month you might prepare the monthly expenditure estimate and run it by your partner.
The parliament then breaks for a recess before which every ministry’s proposed allocation is sent to the respective parliamentary committees overlooking them for detailed scrutiny. Just like how each partner will take some time to go through the expenditure list to review if it's all okay.
When the parliament reconvenes, each ministry’s allocation is debated, discussed, and put to vote separately after which the budget is taken up for a vote. Just like how you will discuss the allocation for things like groceries, leisure, holidays, etc to see if it has to be increased or decreased based on how much you can afford.
It is important to bring up our kids, fully informed around our public institutions so that they can grow up to be responsible citizens who will govern our future. We must ensure that our kids start asking the right questions and vote on issues and not parties and leaders.
So the next time you see these phrases in the newspaper, TV, or Social media, don’t swipe past it. Find your child and explain some of these things. Ask them how they would like to change things. Encourage them to, for example, write a letter to the local Member of Parliament. Or give them a complex phrase and ask them to go find the meaning online.
There’s a lot that can be done, but it starts with parents, teachers and caregivers being engaged, informed, participative citizens.
There are a lot of independent organizations trying their best to make parliament more accessible to the citizens. They help break down the complicated jargon. I am going to drop some links to such pages/organizations, feel free to check them out:
PRS Legislative Research - www.prsindia.org: They provide excellent data on the performance of parliament and MPs. You can look up your MP and check her/his performance.
Maadhyam - www.instagram.com/maadhyamconnect/ : They cover the workings of parliament live and help break down complicated legislation on Instagram.
Newslaundry has an excellent video series on youtube that breakdown the working of parliament -
The assembly project - They highlight the beautiful legislature buildings across India along with their history : www.instagram.com/theassembly.project/
Mantri Cards - a trump card game made in India, Contains information of 100 Members of Parliament (MPs) from the 17th Lok Sabha. - https://www.mantricards.in/
Drawing Activity - If you find everything here utterly boring, here’s a fun exercise on how to draw the Indian parliament! Hopefully, this will bring more questions and interest towards the governance of our nation -
Nagarajan Chandru, an engineer by education, went on to do the prestigious Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament (LAMP) fellowship. He ran the public policy division for a major regional political party. He is now pursuing a career in Renewable Energy.
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