Parliament’s debate is shrinking

As Parliament concluded its Winter Session this week, the official record made for reassuring reading. Over 19 days and 15 sittings, the Lok Sabha recorded productivity of 111 per cent and the Rajya Sabha 121 per cent. Together, the two Houses sat for over 92 hours. Eight Bills were passed, including legislation replacing the two-decade-old rural employment guarantee scheme, opening the civil nuclear sector to private participation, and raising foreign direct investment in insurance to 100 per cent. By conventional measures of legislative efficiency, this was a functional, even productive, session.

Presiding officers in both Houses highlighted extended sittings and late hours as evidence of commitment to legislative work. The government described the session as “very productive”, arguing that the laws passed would accelerate reform and improve welfare delivery. On paper, Parliament did not underperform.

Yet the same record, read more closely, reveals what these metrics cannot capture. High productivity figures and legislative output now coexist with a steady thinning of Parliament’s deliberative role. The session was busy, but sustained engagement with several issues of national importance remained limited, uneven, or absent.

This change did not occur overnight. The elevation of productivity metrics as the primary measure of parliamentary success dates clearly to the period after 2017. It emerged first in the Rajya Sabha, where persistent disruptions led to an increasing emphasis on hours utilised and productivity percentages as markers of institutional performance. What began as a defensive accounting gradually normalised late sittings, compressed debates, and procedural closure as indicators of success. In subsequent years, the same evaluative language migrated to the Lok Sabha. Today, both Houses converge on a metric-driven understanding of effectiveness, one that increasingly prizes throughput over deliberation.

It would be a mistake to read this concern as a plea for a lost golden age. Parliamentary history, in India and elsewhere, offers no period of uninterrupted deliberative harmony. Even in phases often remembered for substantive debate, outcomes were shaped by power, party discipline, and executive dominance. What differed was not the absence of conflict, but the expectation that major disagreements would be aired, if not resolved, on the floor of the House. That expectation was uneven, contested, and never universal, but it acted as a limiting norm on how far procedure could replace persuasion. It is also worth recognising that such imbalances have appeared under different governments at different times. The reason current misgivings feel sharper is partly because they are contemporary and unfolding in real time. Distance softens memory, but institutional patterns persist.

Several major legislations during the session were passed amid protests, disruptions, or late-night sittings that left little space for careful scrutiny. The insurance amendment Bill, which raises FDI to 100 per cent in the financial services sector, was cleared by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha. Voice votes are procedurally valid, but their repeated use for consequential legislation weakens transparency and blurs accountability. When individual voting records are not visible, public ownership of legislative choices diminishes.

The replacement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among the most consequential social protection frameworks in the country, was passed after the Rajya Sabha sat past midnight. The legislation increased guaranteed workdays, a significant policy change, but also triggered sharp controversy over the dropping of Mahatma Gandhi’s name. Heated exchanges, slogan-shouting, and the tearing of papers dominated proceedings in both Houses. The Bill passed, but the quality of debate struggled to rise above confrontation.

What Parliament did not discuss is as telling as what it did. A proposed debate on air pollution, despite persistent public concern and repeated demands from the opposition, did not take place. Pollution remained a lived crisis outside Parliament, but failed to receive sustained attention within it. This growing disconnect between public urgency and parliamentary engagement is no longer incidental.

Two extended debates did take place, on the 150 years of Vande Mataram and on election reforms. Both saw high participation and long hours of discussion, demonstrating that Parliament retains the capacity for engagement when political consensus exists on the subject matter. Even here, limits were visible. On election reforms, the opposition repeatedly sought to raise concerns over electoral roll revisions and the appointment of election commissioners, while the government confined the discussion to the agreed framework. Debate occurred, but without convergence.

The broader pattern is difficult to ignore. Parliament remains effective at processing legislation, but less reliable as a forum for resolving national disagreements. Contentious issues are frequently deferred, narrowed, or displaced rather than debated fully. Repeated adjournments followed by compressed sittings create conditions where passage becomes the priority and persuasion the casualty.

This shift carries consequences beyond parliamentary optics. Laws enacted with limited discussion are more vulnerable to implementation challenges and legal scrutiny. Parliamentary debate is not ornamental. It is where administrative assumptions are tested, fiscal implications surfaced, and unintended consequences flagged. Weak deliberation produces weaker policy.

The erosion of Parliament’s debating role also affects federal balance. National legislation increasingly shapes areas that directly affect states, from welfare delivery to environmental regulation. When debate is curtailed, state concerns, particularly those voiced by opposition MPs, struggle to find space. Over time, this deepens perceptions of centralisation and complicates cooperative governance.

Responsibility for this outcome does not rest with one side alone. Disruptions by the opposition, sharply criticised by the Rajya Sabha Chairman during the session, contribute to the erosion of norms. Protest that overwhelms proceedings leaves little room for persuasion. At the same time, the executive’s reliance on procedural efficiency, voice votes, and late sittings reflects a preference for closure over contestation. Both tendencies hollow out Parliament’s core function.

There are correctives available. Referring Bills to parliamentary committees, as was done with the proposed higher education regulator and the market securities code, remains one of the most effective ways to restore depth to legislative scrutiny. Making such referrals routine rather than exceptional would signal renewed respect for deliberation.

Equally important is a rethinking of how parliamentary success is judged. Sitting longer hours and passing more Bills cannot be the sole indicators. The range of issues debated, the seriousness of scrutiny, and Parliament’s responsiveness to public concern matter just as much. A House that works efficiently but avoids difficult conversations risks becoming procedurally strong and democratically thin.

As this session ends, the official record will rightly note hours, percentages, and Bills passed. What it will not easily capture is Parliament’s gradual retreat from its role as the nation’s primary debating chamber. Reversing this trend requires more than procedural reform. It demands a shared political commitment to treat debate not as an obstacle to governance, but as its foundation. 

Parliament does not lose authority when it argues. It loses authority when it stops arguing altogether.

The author is a political scientist whose work examines democratic institutions, legislative behaviour and the ways in which information systems shape public reasoning