Individual Parliamentarian’s role as the national law maker is on a decline, which in turn, has adversely impacted the quality of debates and their outcome. Discuss.

The Constitution envisages the Member of Parliament as a deliberative national lawmaker, yet the space for the individual parliamentarian has visibly shrunk — with measurable costs to the quality of legislation and debate.

Evidence of decline

• Sitting days have fallen from about 130 a year in the 1950s to nearly half that; disruptions routinely consume Question Hour.
• Committee scrutiny has collapsed: the share of bills referred to parliamentary committees fell from 71 per cent in the 15th Lok Sabha to about 16 per cent in the 17th (PRS data).
• Major laws have been passed with under an hour of debate or amid din, including substantive changes routed as money bills, as with the Aadhaar Act.
• Only 14 private members' bills have ever been passed — none since 1970.

Why the individual voice has declined

• The Tenth Schedule combined with the routine use of the whip makes dissent equivalent to defection, reducing MPs to party delegates.
• Executive dominance — ordinances, guillotining of budget demands, expanding delegated legislation — bypasses detailed scrutiny.
• MPs lack institutional research support and time, while candidature increasingly rewards money and patronage over legislative craft.

Consequences and correctives

• The outcomes are hastily drafted laws needing repeated amendment or judicial correction, and debates that generate heat rather than scrutiny.
• Correctives: confine the whip to confidence motions (170th Law Commission Report, NCRWC), make committee referral the default, guarantee minimum sitting days, and strengthen research services for members.

Reviving the individual parliamentarian is not nostalgia. Deliberation is the source of a law's legitimacy, and Parliament's authority ultimately rests on the quality of its debate and the independence of those who conduct it.