India’s parliamentary system was chosen for accountability over stability, yet contemporary governance challenges suggest the system may be failing on both counts. Examine.

The Constituent Assembly made a conscious choice to take responsibility over stability. Ambedkar was explicit: the American system gives more stability but less responsibility; Britain's parliamentary model prioritises accountability.

Seventy-five years later, the question is whether India's parliamentary system delivers either. why parliamentary system was chosen (accountability over stability)

• Familiarity: 30–40 years of quasi-responsible government under colonial framework; parliamentary traditions already embedded
• Accountability: executive drawn from and removable by legislature; collective responsibility (Art. 75(3)) ensures CoM answers to Lok Sabha continuously, not merely at election
• Representation: heterogeneous, plural India needs greater scope for diverse voices.
• presidential system concentrates executive mandate in one individual elected nationally, marginalising regional diversity Avoiding legislature-executive continuity between organs;
  • deadlock: infant democracy needed

American-style gridlock risked governance independent, resource-scarce state paralysis in a newly

Contemporary governance challenges:

• Presidentialisation of parliamentary politics: parliamentary PMs acquiring presidential traits
  • Elections increasingly revolve around a central leader
  • direct communication through Mann Ki Baat, social media rallies, personalised welfare messaging.
  • PM-branded schemes (PM-KISAN, PM-JAY, PM Awas) strengthen mass legitimacy but reduce mediating role of party forums.

Coalition fragmentation vs. supermajority concentration: India oscillates between two extremes

• coalition paralysis (1989–99: four PMs in ten years; 2G, coal scam era of rent extraction)
• supermajority concentration (2014–24: farm laws, demonetisation, Art. 370 without adequate deliberation).
• Neither extreme serves constitutional design; both represent parliamentary system operating outside its intended bandwidth.

Anti-defection law hollowing parliamentary independence:

• MPs cannot vote conscience; ministers cannot publicly dissent.
• Parliament sits approximately 50 days/year; Standing Committee referrals dropped from 71% (14th LS) to 60%+ bypassed (16th LS).

Digital executive bypassing legislative oversight:

• Executive power increasingly exercised through algorithms, dashboards, and executive orders — CERT-In directions,
• FRS deployment, DPDP government exemptions

Failing accountability:

• Cabinet bypassed on mega decisions: Art. 75(3)'s collective responsibility survives in form; deliberation is dismal.
  • Demonetisation (Nov 2016) — Cabinet informed hours before announcement; no sub-committee, no economic ministry deliberation.
  • Farm laws (2020) — three ordinances, then bills passed in four days without Standing Committee referral.
  • Art. 370 abrogation — Home Ministry drafted; Cabinet briefed day-of.
  • 16th Lok Sabha passed 60%+ bills without Standing Committee referral vs. 71% referred in 14th LS. Question Hour: the primary accountability
  • Parliament reduced to post-office: tool increasingly unproductive;
  • Parliament sits approximately 50 days/year. Crossman's thesis (1963):
  • Cabinet government replaced by Prime Ministerial government
  • Unlike the UK Cabinet (ministers resigned over Brexit, Iraq War), no Indian Cabinet minister has resigned on policy grounds in recent memory.
  • Anti-defection hollowing collective responsibility: 10th Schedule prevents MPs from voting against party whip, hence ministers cannot publicly dissent from PM decisions without risking positions.
  • Extra-constitutional power centres: Art. 74 designates CoM as sole advisory body — constitutional design has no room for these actors.
  • UPA era — Sonia Gandhi as NAC chair issued policy directives (NREGA, RTI, Food Security Act) outside constitutional office.
  • The PMO under the Principal Secretary (not a minister, not accountable to Parliament) drafts policy frameworks previously owned by Finance, Home, Foreign Ministries.

Restoring what the system promised

• Mandatory Standing Committee referral for all non-money bills
• PMO accountability under RTI; Principal Secretary's role defined in

Allocation of Business Rules

• UK-model Cabinet Manual codify conventions, quorum for major decisions, mandatory dissent recording
• Anti-defection reform allow conscience voting on non-confidence motions while retaining party discipline on legislation India does not need a presidential system, it needs its parliamentary system to function as constitutionally designed. The accountability deficit is behavioural, not structural and the stability deficit is political, not systemic.