ABSTRACT
While the Indian Parliament has become far more representative in recent decades under the ever-changing modes of Indian electoral politics, there has been an increased level of participation and contestation, which also underlines the institutional challenges it faces. At the same time, frequent disruptions, unparliamentarily behaviour, absenteeism, absence of meaningful debate, indifference of the members to their prime task of law making, entry of elected representatives with a criminal past, the failure of the party leadership to take non-partisan positions on the issues of common good – all these have indicated a marked decline in the effectiveness of Parliament as a law-making institution. India being a parliamentary democracy, the Parliament is entrusted with the task of ensuring accountability of the political executive but has been found wanting in this regard also. Despite the doctrine of checks and balances being in place, there has been much encroachment in the constitutional domain of the Parliament both by the executive as well as judiciary. Arguably, both the executive as well as the judiciary appears to be getting more powers at the expense of the dysfunctional parliament. It is argued here that the responsibility for the decline is to be shared by both the state as well as national parties, though the smaller state level parties that have had narrow social support base but under the fragmented/coalitional party system have gained significance, seem more culpable to the charge of having self-abdicated their legislative functions. In an age when the law-making process has become much more complex in a globally connected world, the political leaders tend to feel that doing their parliamentary duties hardly bring any electoral dividend to them.
