Dudurudh

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Governors cannot simply sit on bills that have already been passed by the legislature. In doing so, it issued a scathing rebuke of Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi for failing to act on multiple bills passed by the state assembly. 

In response, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar passed some scathing remarks against the court and claimed that the judiciary was overstepping its jurisdiction by instructing the Governor to act – a verifiably false claim because the court did not instruct the Governor to act a particular way. It simply said that whatever action the Governor may want  to take – approval, rejection or referring the bill for presidential approval – must be done in under 3 months. 

Jagdeep Dhankar is right.  The Indian judiciary has deeply rooted systemic faults. Everyone who has followed that institution at any level knows it. In fact, the problems run even deeper than he claims. The court at the lowest levels is still inaccessible to those who most need recourse to justice. The court at its highest levels is a theatre of privilege both for those seeking justice and those dispensing it. It is heavily overburdened and too often doing too little too late. Its philosophy of justice is so reliant on the magnanimity of individuals that scope for systemic change feels near-impossible.

Yet, his attack on the Supreme Court in this instance is selective and tunnel visioned. Should the Supreme Court tell the Governor or president what to do? Absolutely not. But can a Governor hold a democratically elected legislative assembly hostage to his demands? Absolutely not.

Dhankar’s problem with the court is not that it is interfering in the functioning of a governor but that it’s interfering with THIS governor whose agenda he aligns with.

Dhankar is the vice-president. The head of the Rajya Sabha and part of a co-equal branch of government called the Parliament. That institution is mired in problems of its own. Om Birla and Dhankar should go down as the worst stewards of parliament India has ever seen. There’s a whole other post to be written about how undemocratically he has managed that institution and the damage he has inflicted on it. Dhankar offers platitudes to democracy in his public speeches but under his watch the treasury benches have had free rein while opposition is often stifled. It was no surprise then that on his last day in office, a government minister stood up in parliament and declared that only what he (the minister) says will go on the record (a power reserved for the speaker of the house) while Dhankar watched on mutely. Of course, the minister doesn’t actually control what goes on the record and he knows it well but the Freudian slip is telling. That moment showed the power dynamic that actually exists between this government and this VP. 

Parliament is now democratic in name only. If it is true that the Prime Minister forced him to resign, it will only be the latest in a long line of anecdotes during his short tenure when he bowed to pressure from the executive when he should have stood up to them. 

Dhankar and Birla may hope that history will remember them as the speakers who built the new Parliament building but their legacy will show them as the ones who dismantled its essence brick by brick.