With the 17th Lok Sabha having ended, the stage is now set for the general election. The final session of Parliament, unfortunately, proved to be as divisive as several of the previous sessions, with both the ruling and the Opposition parties trading charges and conceding no quarter to each other. This unseemly spectacle has given rise to concerns about the future of parliamentary democracy in the country.
We in India have been more fortunate than many other countries in being able to sustain democracy, and in earning a reputation of adherence to the best of parliamentary practices. The Constitution of India, one of the finest written Constitutions to be found anywhere in the world, includes among other Articles, a set of Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties of its citizens and the Directive Principles of State Policy, which have been our safeguards in sustaining democracy. Looking at the current decline in parliamentary practices, people, however, worry whether Parliament can be depended upon to sustain a stable democracy in the future.
This situation has nothing to do with India’s external or internal dynamics. India is today better placed than it has been for many decades in connection with these two points. The global political environment may be murky, but India has hardly been impacted adversely, notwithstanding the ongoing war in Ukraine, the turmoils in West Asia and other similar tensions. China remains a matter of concern demanding extreme vigilance, but it does not pose an immediate threat. Pakistan, embroiled in its internal problems, is hardly a threat to India.
