ABSTRACT

While starvation deaths in Kalahandi were making headline news and the central and state governments were quarrelling over drought relief, the Lok Sabha1 – the lower house of the Indian Parliament – was not sitting idle. Indeed, starvation deaths reported in the media figured prominently in Lok Sabha debates and questions, and MPs frequently pressured the government to improve both its attitude and its response to drought-related deprivation. But did such a focus on Kalahandi have a positive impact? And to what extent do parliamentarians actually influence public policy on poverty and drought? It is therefore important to examine the role and capacity of the Indian Parliament – and political articulation within it – in holding central and state governments to account for policy failures. In doing so, this chapter does not follow any particular method of discourse analysis but relies on Mathur and Jayal’s (1993) recommendation of studying political articulation as a two-fold issue – the character of representation and extent of participation of MPs in parliamentary debates and questions and the content of representation, debates and questions.