Role of legislation and democracy

There is a general understanding that the western democracy where plebiscite takes place for every policy decision is a better version of the representative democracy that is a much younger form of democracy which persists in India. A plebiscite can be a soothing idea that everyone part of the country can have a say in the policy. They obviously would vote with the immediate calculations in their local surroundings. However, they at times fail to take bigger factors into the picture. They might be expert in their own field of engineering, or art or accounting but wider policies need to mandatorily have a wider scope.

Indian democracy has been passing through some speed breakers. We have a good start at the beginning of constitution forming. In fact, every constitution decision was poured upon with an ample amount of discussions. Besides, we took the best of what is available in other countries e.g. federalism, adoption of fundamental rights and fundamental duties, later on, directive principles of state policy which would add more arrows to the policy makers etc.

However, there is more chaos and less productive discussions at the assembly house. Day and again we have seen disruption engulfing the assembly for political reasons. Judiciary is making more number of laws which amounts to the larger public e.g. transgender bill. On another hand, we also saw that hegemony has been established where entering into politics for a person from a common background is so difficult that it is a taboo to even think about it. Although there is increased criminalization of the parliamentarians and the MLAs, state like Telangana has seen more post-graduates in its state assembly.

Indian constitution makers had set high standards by providing us a marvelous rule book. We need to uphold its sanctity. We need to ensure that parliaments and state assembly should have wider representation from all class and other backgrounds.