The attacks on the Rajya Sabha and the proposals by more than one leading political personality to undermine the Upper House are worrying.
A few weeks ago, the Finance Minister, ironically also the leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha,
wrote a piece that said, "It's a serious question in a parliamentary democracy wherein...the wisdom of a directly elected house is questioned by the indirectly elected house." Others too have called for so-called "reforms" that will only serve to render the Rajya Sabha toothless.
While superficially persuasive and useful gimmicks to attract attention on Twitter, such ideas are not just dangerous, they go against the grain of our federal democracy. In fact, they are an example of what I called "Cowboy Constitutionalism" in a recent debate in Parliament.
It is alarming that the government and its cheerleaders, nonplussed by the absence of a majority and free run in the Rajya Sabha, have resorted to such assaults, even while commemorating Constitution Day on November 26 and the 125th birth anniversary of the chair of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, B.R. Ambedkar, on December 6.
What happened on November 26, 1949, to merit it being regarded as Constitution Day? This was the day when the Constituent Assembly adopted the draft of the Constitution, which came into effect three months later on January 26, 1950. The members of the Constituent Assembly who created the Constitution were
indirectly elected by state legislatures, making the Constituent Assembly a precursor to the Rajya Sabha.
And so those who mock the Rajya Sabha and play down its importance are actually questioning the foundational basis of our Constitution. Perhaps this realization dawned belatedly when the Prime Minister praised the Rajya Sabha in his speech during the debate on Constitution Day. Now he needs to act on his words and end this line of argument and attack against the Rajya Sabha.
Those who have asked for the Rajya Sabha to lose its powers to question and force a rethink from the government are being dishonest. With its large and unquestioning majority in the Lok Sabha, the government has rammed through Bill after Bill. The Land Bill and the Goods and Services Tax constitutional amendment are two cases. It is only deliberate interrogation by the Rajya Sabha that has led to the government acknowledging serious shortcomings in both these Bills.
This is fair. The Rajya Sabha is an indirectly elected House, representing the legislators of states and the peoples of those states. Both land acquisition laws and the GST have an impact on the manner in which state governments and economies function. Is the Chamber of the States - which is what the Rajya Sabha is - not qualified to consider such matters? Is this not part of the checks and balances in our Constitution? If the BJP was okay with it from 2004-2014, when it was in opposition and the then government did not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha, why does it have a problem now?
That is the crux of the issue. The government makes a lot of noise about "cooperative federalism". The Trinamool Congress has been insistent on putting this into practice as "operative federalism". The attitude towards the Rajya Sabha is a test of this operative federalism.
Precedents cited by the Rajya Sabha's new-found skeptics are not convincing either. There is talk of how the House of Lords was clipped of its wings 100 years ago. But the House of Lords was an unelected body, consisting of hereditary peers and nominees. Neither was or is it representative of provincial and state interests in a federal polity. The United Kingdom lacks the size and diversity of India, with its complex jigsaw of states. And when it comes to local issues with regard to say Scotland, the Scottish Parliament has enormous autonomy that cannot be routinely infringed upon by the House of Commons and the British government in London. This is not the case in India, where for all the nice words about federalism, Delhi's writ still runs large on matters that should be in the domain of the states.
It is said that as we evolve, we sometimes become mirror images of what we oppose. The current government is strangely nostalgic for the era when a single party dominated politics and the Lok Sabha, and could ride roughshod over the Rajya Sabha. The most shaming episode of that phase came in 1976, when the Constitution was amended to give overriding powers to the executive, and the Rajya Sabha, then firmly under the thumb of the government of the day, didn't ask basic questions.
It was the high noon of the Emergency, which senior members of the BJP-led government warn us against day in and day out. And yet, their attitude towards the Rajya Sabha is one that wants to reduce it to an Emergency-era rubber stamp. Close to 175 countries have constitutions, but the average age of a constitution is only 17 years. India's Constitution has weathered many storms and lived for four times that average age. Let us cherish it rather than advocate scuttling its basic tenets, of which the autonomy of the Rajya Sabha is one.
(Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.