India's New Parliament
From CHANCHAL SARKAR
NEW DELHI
TitE new Indian Lower House, at work since April, is still groping for character. No clear alliances or balance of forces are visible, nor have any fresh and incisive experts emerged yet. The election wrought something of a havoc among the veterans. More than half the 494 elected faces (a few are nominated to represent special interests) in the third Lok Sabha (House of the People) are new; the Opposition's strength has climbed to 133 from 123, while the Con- gress Party now fields 361 members, compared with 371 in 1957.
As often happens, however, in a one-man-one- vote, simple majority system, the changes are mostly illusory. With only 45 per cent. of the votes, Congress bagged 73 per cent. of the seats and its monolithic supremacy is so com- plete that, however angry the Opposition's butting, it can leave no dents. Until the forces - -Government and an Opposition (however heterogeneous)—are more evenly matched, Par- liament will find it difficult to come into its own.
Such a balance is, of course, in nobody's ordering. But accepting the disparity, which the previous Parliament also had, the third Lok Sabha still conies out somewhat poorer. The Opposition is a shade stronger in numbers, but, paradoxically, the leaders of all its principal parties—Communist, Praja Socialist, Swatantra and Jima Sangh—are out. They stood for very different things, Mr. Dange of the Communists, Mr. Masani and Mr. Ranga of the free-enter- prise, pro-capitalist Swatantra Party, or the Right-wing, Hindu revivalist Jana Sangh's Mr. Bajpayee. But they, as well as the Socialist leader, Mr. Asoka Mehta, had one thing in com- mon they brought stature to their parties, to debate and hence to Parliament.
It is not just that the Opposition is fragmented and shorn of leadership; deep contradictions separate it. The Communists, for instance (thirty-four members), have, almost since the border dispute with China burst into the open, been divided among themselves. A section would prefer to co-operate with the Congress on agreed policies, another is for implacable dogmatic opposition to it. Two other parties, Swatantra and Jana Sangh (who are the official Opposition in some of the State Assemblies and, with eighteen and fourteen members, are relatively well represented in Parliament); are curiously divided. The Swatantra Party's economics is conservative, but its social outlook modern. The Jana Sangh stands for Hindu orthodoxy and has to compensate this by almost slap-dash eco- nomic progressivism. The Jana Sangh has doubled its vote and the increase in strength (from thirteen to twenty-one) of it and its allies is a little worrying.
Of the split democratic Socialists, the Praja Socialist section sits gloomily contemplating its shrinkage, election by election, and the Socialists are still in that chrysalis stage when they sup- pose that demonstrations in Parliament, walk- outs and heckling the Speaker are the strategy of parliamentary battle. The Communists tried these tactics as far back as 1951-52, only to abandon them soon as useless. The only other identifiable pocket is the seven-member Dravida Munnetra Kazagham group from Madras, who stand for a separate Dravidasthan State in the south to be formed by seceding from India. With their coming the demand for secession has for the first time been openly made in Parliament.
They and the sprinkling of Hindi language- wallahs (for whom the panacea of all the coun- try's ills is Hindi and still more Hindi) are extreme symptoms of a trend towards regional- ism that must be understood to appreciate modern India. The Central Parliament is still immensely powerful under Mr. Nehru's leader- ship. To the outside world it seems to tower supreme. But in fact the individual States, under strong Chief Ministers, increasingly make the running. More and more the State capitals are becoming the centres of power and, at election time, it is the State Legislature seats that are hotly contested. New Delhi is remote. In the Congress it is often the rebels, mal- contents and out-of-power groups who are shoved up to Parliament. The ruling cliques pre- fer to stay on in the States and run fourteen of the fifteen Governments. This is one reason why the best men and women of the dominant party are reluctant to move to New Delhi.
Adult franchise brings to Parliament quite a different lmn of person from the sophisticated, highly educated members of the old Central Assembly. Today's MPs are in many senses more representative, but they have been raised much more in the regional tradition, Their horizon is limited and language difficulties keep them from giving their best in debate. They are, certainly at the start, not very happy in cos- mopolitan New Delhi. Many of them don't know English well enough and Hindi hasn't yet spread significantly to non-Hindi areas. To read and write simple letters or to ask a straightforward question, yes, but not to debate, interpolate, pin down. This is why the Indian Parliament has difficulty in cbming to focus, expressing the emotion, indignation or admiration of the whole House. In time co-operation between members who belong to analogous language groups and simultaneous translation will probably weld the House better together.
The Congress Party, secure in its plate-mail majority, doesn't do enough for Parliament as an institution. Probably no dominant party ever does. Of its 361 members, maybe thirty pull their weight. The party doesn't organise or encourage specialisation. Unlike in the last Parliament, hardly any Congressmen have shown themselves willing to join hands with the Opposition to harry the Government on a major public issue.
The Ministers, knowing how well entrenched the Government is, often treat the Opposition with tolerant amusement bordering on indiffer- ence and, Mr. Nehru apart, there is in this Parliament no towering figure. Until his death last year, Mr. Govind Ballabh Pant, the deputy- leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, was such a figure. The Council of Ministers, ex- panded from forty-seven (there are now eighteen Cabinet Ministers as against twelve in the last administration) to fifty-two, has few new faces. There has been desultory talk of a Left-Right polarisation within the Cabinet and the very recent choice of Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari as Minister without Portfolio might strengthen the so-called Left (represented by Mr. Krishna Menon and a few others) against the Finance Minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, generally taken to lead the Right wing. His recent illness has slowed Mr. Nehru down and he isn't his old 'Commanding self.
It is, of course, much too early to pass judg- ment on the third Lok Sabha. Parliament in India has peculiar problems of its own which have to be understood in the context of the evolution of the federal pattern, the party system and regional pulls. Events mould each House, and members unknown at the start carve out an individuality for themselves. The more experienced members (relicts of the two previous Houses) now show shrewd awareness of pro- cedural niceties and the freshmen seem in- creasingly eager to participate in debate. In the five years ahead the new Indian Parliament w ill doubtless acquire its own personality.
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