In 1957, Ram Subhag Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar decided to utilise Question Hour to ask Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari about a ...
In 1957, Ram Subhag Singh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar decided to utilise Question Hour to ask Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari about a suspicious investment made by the state-controlled Life Insurance Corporation of India in the company of a Kolkata-based businessman called Haridas Mundhra. This set off a series of events that led to the discovery of independent India’s first financial scandal and to Krishnamachari resigning from Nehru’s cabinet.
The disclosure of this scandal is one of the best examples of how a parliamentary democracy is supposed to function. In this system of government, the executive is responsible to an elected legislature. As the elected representatives of the people, legislators have the job of questioning the government, asking it hard questions it and – if grave problems are discovered – to even dismiss it.
As is obvious, parliament is the very heart of parliamentary democracy.
Hobbling parliament
In spite of this, however, the Modi government has moved to devalue parliament. On Tuesday, it decided that the monsoon session of Parliament – the first after the Covid-19 pandemic hit India in March – would be held without Question Hour.
Question Hour is a segment of a parliament session during which MPs are allowed to ask questions of the government. Like much of...
