TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Democracy in India, which is sustained by two vital components, Debate and Protest, is facing a threat and is almost on the verge of being killed, as its crucial power ‘Debate’ is showing signs of decline, eminent political theorist and member of Britain’s House of Lords, Lord Bhikhu Parekh said on Monday.
Parekh was delivering a talk on ‘The Indian Tradition of Public debate” in Panjim during the ongoing Festival of Ideas 2013.
“Dissent is integral to democracy. Though India had thousands of year long tradition of debate right from the Vedic time, currently there is no serious debate happening on a number of critical issues. Even at the Parliament level, one cannot find any debate,” he said adding ‘this in itself is a threat to our culture of debate and democracy’.
The much touted festival saw Parekh make almost similar remarks he had made at Vadodara in September 2012, at a lecture titled slightly differently ~’Traditions of public debate in India: From Vedic to modern times’ organized by M S University’s, Department of History.
He claimed that there are much evidence to prove that the traditional and historical public debate concept that played a great role in making India free from British rule, is now showing signs of decline.
Parekh raised questions over the functioning of the Parliament and State assemblies, where leaders resist from making any strong debate on crucial issues, which are public centric.
“During past few decades, the quality of public deliberation at all levels has suffered a dramatic decline. Parliament meets for far fewer days. Even when it meets, there are regular interruptions with members rushing to the Well of the House, leading sometimes to the suspension of the day’s proceedings and the wiping out of the vital question hour. As a result, bills of momentous importance are sometimes passed without careful scrutiny or study,” he said.
During his one hour long speech, Parekh also raised unhappiness over Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s silence on Delhi gang rape case. He said that political leaders and police failed to play their role in the entire incident while the attention was diverted to the massive outrage against the incident.
“There was need to have a national debate, where PM should have come out in public and expressed himself. A detailed discussion in the Parliament was also required,” he opined.
