Did Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla weaken democracy by his actions? Democracy survives not on slogans or intentions, but on habits: questioning, explaining, disagreeing, and listening
WHETHER Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has “derailed democracy” is a matter of intense political debate in India, with sharply conflicting viewpoints based on recent events in Parliament, particularly this week.
Parliament is not a theatre. It is the constitutional mechanism through which power explains itself to the people. When a Prime Minister avoids Parliament—and when the Speaker rationalises that avoidance—the issue is no longer disorder in the House. It is the erosion of democracy itself. When Parliament is disrupted or dysfunctional, this accountability mechanism is compromised, allowing for unchecked executive power.
Speaker Om Birla’s admission that he advised the Prime Minister not to enter the House because of potential disruption is extraordinary. Birla stated that he feared an “inappropriate” or “unforeseen incident” could occur, which he believed would have damaged the dignity of the House. He termed the conduct of some members during previous proceedings as a “black spot” in parliamentary history. Disorder is not an aberration in parliamentary democracies; it is a feature of contentious politics. Managing it is the Speaker’s responsibility. Preventing the executive from facing Parliament is not.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi caused an uproar in Parliament by waving a memoir attributed to former army chief General MM Naravane, titled Four Stars of Destiny, alleging that PM Modi failed to provide clear direction during the 2020 China border standoff. Gandhi claimed the book reveals Chinese tanks were near Indian positions and the government told the army to do “what it deemed appropriate”.
The memoir, which is still undergoing security review by the Ministry of Defence, was quoted by Gandhi to claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi passed the responsibility of the India-China conflict in 2020 on to General Naravane. Gandhi was stopped from reading from the book by the Speaker and top ministers, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who argued that an unpublished document cannot be quoted in the House. Gandhi alleged that the government was trying to hide the truth about the 2020 Ladakh standoff and that the Prime Minister was afraid to address the Parliament because of the revelations in the book.
What unfolded was not an isolated lapse. It is the logical outcome of a political culture that treats accountability as optional and consultation as expendable.
The most visible casualty of this culture is Parliament itself. Bills of immense consequence—on citizenship, labour, agriculture, data protection, and criminal law—have been passed with minimal debate, without adequate committee scrutiny, often amid mass suspensions of opposition MPs. Ordinances substitute legislation. Budget sessions shrink. Question Hour is diluted. Parliamentary committees are bypassed.
The Prime Minister’s participation in the House has become sporadic, ceremonial, and scripted. He rarely responds to sustained questioning. He does not submit himself to unscripted press conferences. Transparency is replaced by monologue. This is not decisive leadership; it is executive insulation.
The problem does not stop with the executive. The Speaker’s chair, constitutionally designed to be the neutral guardian of parliamentary democracy, is increasingly perceived as partisan. Selective suspensions, expunging opposition speeches, and facilitating executive avoidance corrode the legitimacy of the House itself. When the Chair aligns with power rather than procedure, Parliament ceases to be a check and becomes a formality.
This pattern extends across institutions. Constitutional and statutory bodies—the Election Commission, investigative agencies, governors, regulatory authorities—are increasingly seen not as independent referees but as instruments of political convenience. Institutions do not need to collapse to fail; they only need to lose credibility.
Nowhere is the gap between rhetoric and reality more evident than in the economy. Grand claims of growth are not matched by granular accountability. Unemployment remains under-discussed. Real wages stagnate. Informal sector distress is minimised. Manufacturing has not absorbed labour at scale despite years of “Make in India.” MSMEs remain fragile. Inequality deepens even as headline GDP numbers are celebrated.
Economic data is delayed, reclassified, or selectively highlighted. When numbers are curated rather than debated, economic governance turns into narrative management. Accountability becomes impossible when facts themselves are contested or concealed.
Federalism, too, has been hollowed out. States face fiscal stress, delayed GST compensation, and shrinking autonomy. Governors intervene selectively in opposition-led states. Central agencies appear more active where political advantage exists. Cooperative federalism has given way to command-and-control federalism. This is not administrative efficiency; it is political dominance.
The damage to India’s social fabric may prove the hardest to repair. Polarisation is no longer incidental; it is instrumental. Hate speech is normalised. Vigilante violence is rationalised. Silence from the highest office during moments of communal crisis speaks louder than condemnation. Citizenship is moralised. Dissent is branded as disloyalty. Protest is criminalised.
A democracy cannot survive when fear replaces trust as the organising principle of society.
The rule of law has been reduced to a tool of selectivity. Pre-trial detention becomes punishment. Bail is delayed. Trials drag on. Investigative agencies act with visible asymmetry. The perception—whether intended or not—is that the law applies differently depending on political alignment. Justice delayed is justice denied; justice weaponised is democracy degraded.
Foreign policy is projected as assertive, but remains largely insulated from parliamentary scrutiny. Trade negotiations with the EU, the US, and others are opaque. Strategic decisions are announced, not debated. Parliament is treated as a stage for applause, not inquiry. Foreign policy without domestic accountability weakens both democracy and diplomacy.
National security is increasingly invoked to avoid oversight. Major security incidents rarely receive comprehensive parliamentary discussion. Military and intelligence matters are politicised during elections but shielded from scrutiny during governance. Secrecy becomes a substitute for accountability. A confident state can afford oversight; only fragile authority fears questions.
The media landscape mirrors this institutional imbalance. Large sections of the media function less as watchdogs and more as amplifiers of power. Independent journalism is intimidated through legal harassment, financial pressure, or access denial. Data is withheld or selectively released. Public discourse is flooded with distraction and spectacle. Democracy requires informed citizens; information control produces compliant subjects.
Culture and intellectual life fare no better. Universities are surveilled. Students are policed. Artists are scrutinised. Histories are rewritten to flatter power. Intellectual disagreement is framed as subversion. A civilisation that fears questions fears its own future.
Development itself has been reduced to optics. Infrastructure is showcased, but health, education, nutrition, and rural livelihoods remain underfunded relative to need. Human dignity is subordinated to concrete and rankings.
All of these point to a single reality: power exercised without explanation.
When Parliament is bypassed, opposition delegitimised, institutions bent, media managed, and dissent criminalised, democracy does not collapse dramatically. It erodes procedurally. Forms remain. Elections are held. Slogans are shouted. But deliberation disappears. Accountability fades. Explanation is replaced by proclamation.
This brings us back to Parliament—and to the Speaker.
The Speaker is not an agent of the ruling party. The office exists to defend the House against executive overreach, not to manage inconvenience for the government of the day. Disorder in Parliament is not a justification for executive absence; it is precisely the condition under which democratic leadership is tested.
Opposition parties carry responsibility as well. Protest is legitimate. Disruption can be tactical. But the objective must remain the restoration of deliberation, scrutiny, and answerability—not noise for its own sake.
Democracy survives not on slogans or intentions, but on habits: questioning, explaining, disagreeing, and listening. Once those habits are broken, elections alone cannot repair the damage.
India’s Constitution did not imagine a Prime Minister beyond Parliament, a speaker aligned with power, or institutions reduced to instruments of convenience. It imagined conflict managed through debate, authority restrained by accountability, and leadership answerable to the people through their representatives.
This moment, therefore, is not merely political. It is constitutional.
If Parliament becomes a space the executive can avoid, if scrutiny is treated as hostility, and if dissent is framed as danger, then democracy is not merely in the ICU – it is being slowly disconnected from life support.
History will not ask who disrupted the House. It will ask who emptied it of meaning.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years old. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
