VICTOR FERRAO
In the early weeks of March 2026, the Goa Legislative Assembly witnessed a trou bling spectacle: a full Budget Session, originally slated to run until March 27, was abruptly curtailed. The government justi fied the move by citing the Model Code of Conduct triggered by the impending Ponda by-poll. Yet the outcome was stark. The budget passed with minimal debate on demands for grants, opposition voices were largely sidelined, and the people’s representatives were denied time to scrutinise spending priorities, tax pro posals, or policy gaps. To many observers, this was not prudent governance but a calculated re treat from responsibility—an ex ecutive manoeuvre that treated the legislature as an inconven ient formality rather than the beating heart of democracy. Such curtailment does more than in convenience; it strikes at the very foundations of parliamen tary democracy as envisioned by Dr B R Ambedkar and the delib erative public sphere theorised by Jürgen Habermas. Together, these two thinkers offer a pow erful lens through which we may expose the deeper democratic injury inflicted in Goa. Dr Ambedkar, chief architect of the Indian Constitution, was un ambiguous that democracy is not merely the counting of votes on election day but the continuous, rigorous working of institutions through debate and accountabil ity. In the Constituent Assembly, he repeatedly warned against any tendency to reduce Parlia ment or State legislatures to rubber-stamp bodies. He insist ed that a legislature must have adequate time and space to ex amine every demand for grants, question executive proposals, and ventilate public grievanc es.
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Without this, he argued, the Constitution becomes a mere “grammar of politics” devoid of life. Ambedkar drew a sharp dis tinction between formal democ racy (elections and majorities) and substantive democracy (de liberation that keeps power on trial). He feared that executive convenience could erode legisla tive sovereignty, turning elected representatives into passive en dorsers of the government’s will. In Goa, the decision to truncate the session and rush through the entire budget rather than seek ing a Vote on Account embodies precisely the danger Ambedkar foresaw. The government did not merely shorten proceedings; it pre-empted the constitutional obligation (under Articles 202 and 203) to allow full financial scrutiny. By invoking the Model Code of Conduct as a shield, the ruling dispensation appeared to flee the very accountability that Dr Ambedkar placed at the cen tre of republican governance. Constitutional morality, for Dr Ambedkar, demanded that those in power respect not only the letter of the law but its spirit, en suring that institutions function as arenas of reasoned contesta tion rather than theatres of con venience. The curtailed session fails this test. It signals that the executive views the Assembly not as a partner in governance but as an obstacle to be man aged, thereby weakening the democratic engine Dr Ambedkar so carefully designed. Jürgen Habermas comple ments Ambedkar’s constitu tional critique with a theory of communicative action that places deliberation at the core of legitimate authority. In his discourse theory of democracy, legitimacy does not flow auto matically from electoral victo ry or procedural compliance. It arises only when decisions emerge from free, uncoerced, and inclusive argumentation in the public sphere. Habermas distinguishes between strate gic action where actors pursue power or self-interest through manipulation and communica tive action, where participants orient themselves toward mu tual understanding through the “force of the better argument.” Legislatures, in this view, are not mere voting machines but institutionalised sites of the public sphere where citizens, through their representatives, test claims, challenge assump tions, and refine collective will.
When debate is curtailed, the ideal speech situation collaps es: power displaces reason, and legitimacy evaporates. The Goa government’s move exemplifies strategic action at its clearest. By limiting discus sion time on critical budgetary heads—education, health, in frastructure, tourism, etc,—the executive prevented MLAs from subjecting official narratives to rigorous cross-examination. Opposition parties could not adequately highlight alleged fiscal mismanagement, envi ronmental concerns, or regional disparities besides arguing for the important bills waiting to be tabled. The public, whose taxes fund the budget, was effective ly denied a transparent win dow into how its money would be spent. Habermas would see this as a distortion of the public sphere: citizens are reduced to spectators rather than co-au thors of policy. In a healthy de mocracy, the legislature must facilitate ongoing discourse be tween state and society; when it is silenced, the gap between for mal legality and genuine legiti macy widens. The appearance of “running away from respon sibility” is not mere optics, it is the logical consequence of re placing communicative reason with administrative fiat. The convergence of Dr Ambed kar and Habermas reveals the full gravity of the episode. Dr Ambedkar supplies the institu tional safeguard: legislatures must be allowed to function fully lest democracy degenerate into elected oligarchy. Habermas supplies the normative stand ard: legitimacy requires genuine deliberation, not its simulation. In Goa, both standards were breached. The budget, howev er technically legal, lacks the moral and discursive weight that sustained debate would have conferred. Citizens are left wondering whether allocations reflect careful scrutiny or par tisan expediency. Moreover, the timing immediately before a by-poll fuels the suspicion that electoral calculations trumped democratic duty. This is not an isolated procedural lapse; it sets a precedent that could embolden future governments to treat ses sions as optional when political convenience demands. Smaller states like Goa, already vulner able to executive overreach due to limited legislative strength, suffer disproportionately when deliberation is sacrificed.
The long-term cost is a citizenry in creasingly alienated from the very institutions meant to repre sent them. Critics may counter that ses sions are routinely adjusted and that the Model Code of Conduct imposes genuine constraints. Yet such defences miss the point. Dr Ambedkar never suggested that democracy is frictionless; he insisted that its success de pends on the willingness of pow er-holders to endure friction, public questioning, prolonged debate, even discomfort. Haber mas similarly acknowledged real-world imperfections but maintained that institutions must be designed and operat ed to approximate the ideal of undistorted communication as closely as possible. A govern ment that chooses curtailment over creative accommodation (such as extending sittings with in permissible limits or prior itising essential debate) chooses convenience over conviction. It signals contempt for the very idea that elected representatives owe the public a thorough ac counting. Goa’s truncated session is therefore not merely an admin istrative decision but a symptom of a deeper democratic malaise: the creeping substitution of ex ecutive efficiency for legislative accountability. Dr Ambedkar would have called it a betrayal of constitutional morality. Haber mas would diagnose it as a fail ure of communicative legitimacy.
Together, they remind us that de mocracy dies not with dramatic coups but with quiet erosions like shortened debates, muted voices, budgets passed in haste. If Goan democracy is to retain its vitality, the Assembly must be restored as a forum of robust contestation. Citizens, civil so ciety, and the judiciary have the challenge to insist that sessions are not privileges to be doled out at executive pleasure but rights to be fiercely guarded. Only then can the promise of substantive self-government, so eloquent ly defended by Dr Ambedkar and Habermas, be harvested in practice. (Fr Victor Ferrao is an inde pendent researcher attached to St Francis Xavier Church, Borim, Ponda.)
