When Parliament is disrupted, the first impression is usually that of a government unable to conduct business. That is particularly relevant now, because the Monsoon Session, which began on July 21, is facing repeated disruptions and adjournments almost from the outset, with Opposition parties protesting over a range of issues.
Bills have been delayed, Question Hour is disrupted and proceedings are repeatedly adjourned. But there is another way of looking at the cost of a dysfunctional Parliament. It is one that places the Opposition, rather than the government, at the centre of the disadvantage.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor made precisely this argument at an IIMUN (India’s International Movement to Unite Nations) event. Political protests, dharnas and demonstrations have a legitimate place in a democracy, he said, but Parliament serves a different purpose. It is where political disagreement is converted into questions, arguments, scrutiny and a permanent legislative record.
A government with a majority can ultimately use its numbers to pass legislation. The Opposition, by contrast, has far fewer institutional tools to influence the government. Its most important ones are inside Parliament — Question Hour, Zero Hour, debates, motions, amendments and parliamentary committees.
That makes a functioning Parliament particularly valuable to the Opposition.
“There is no problem with all sorts of political demonstrations, dharnas, hartals, gheraos, sloganeering, whatever. All those are legal, constitutional and permitted in our democratic framework,” Tharoor said.
“But the temple of our democracy is a place where you go for prayer in the form of argument, debate and reasoned thinking,” Tharoor said.
The distinction matters because parliamentary democracy is not simply a mechanism for counting votes. The government’s majority determines whether it can ordinarily get its legislation passed. Parliament, however, is also designed to make the government answer questions, defend its policies, hear objections and place its reasoning on record.
And many of those mechanisms are more valuable to an Opposition party than to the government itself.
THE OPPOSITION’S MOST IMPORTANT WEAPONS ARE PARLIAMENTARY
Question Hour is perhaps the clearest example.
The Lok Sabha describes asking questions as an “inherent and unfettered parliamentary right” of its members. During Question Hour, MPs can seek information on virtually every aspect of government administration and policy, while ministers are required to answer. Starred questions permit oral answers and supplementary questions, allowing MPs to pursue the government’s response in real time.
That accountability mechanism is especially useful to the Opposition.
A minister does not need to use Question Hour to establish that his or her ministry is functioning; the minister already sits inside the executive. An Opposition MP, however, can use a question to demand data, expose inconsistencies, seek explanations or force a minister to publicly defend a decision.
As Tharoor put it, “We are the ones who get to question the ministers during Question Hour, put them on the spot and challenge them.”
The structure of parliamentary government itself gives the Opposition a reason to use the House as an accountability forum. The government controls the executive machinery, and the Opposition’s institutional role includes scrutinising that machinery.
The same logic applies to matters raised outside Question Hour.
In the Lok Sabha, Zero Hour is the period immediately following Question Hour and before listed business. Although “Zero Hour” is not formally recognised in the Rules of Procedure, it has evolved as an established parliamentary practice through which members can raise matters of urgent public importance, subject to the Speaker’s permission.
Rule 377 provides another route. Under it, members can raise matters of general public interest that are not points of order. The Lok Sabha says up to 20 such matters can currently be raised on a single day.
These procedures matter particularly to MPs who are not part of the executive because they offer a formal route to place constituency grievances and public-interest issues before the government.
“An Opposition member needs to flag these issues and put them on record,” Tharoor said. “A minister doesn’t need that. A minister or even a ruling party MP can get his work done because he’s in power, his party’s in power,” Tharoor also said.
The distinction is important. A ruling-party MP may also use Zero Hour or Rule 377, ask questions and participate in debates. But the Opposition has fewer alternative avenues to compel public answers from the executive.
When proceedings are lost, therefore, the Opposition does not merely lose speaking time, it loses institutional opportunities to exercise the very role that parliamentary democracy assigns to it.
DISRUPTION CAN ALSO WEAKEN THE OPPOSITION’S CASE
Opposition parties often disrupt proceedings precisely to draw attention to an issue they believe the government is refusing to discuss. The disruption can generate headlines, force negotiations and sometimes compel the government to respond outside the House.
But prolonged disruption can also remove the Opposition’s opportunity to make its case in the institution where that case has the greatest constitutional and political weight.
The current Monsoon Session of the 18th Lok Sabha illustrates that tension. The Lok Sabha’s official calendar scheduled Question Hour and government business through the session, but repeated disruptions have affected proceedings. On August 10, the Lok Sabha passed the Tribunals Reforms Bill, 2026 without discussion amid Opposition protests.
If the Opposition walks out or proceedings are repeatedly disrupted, the government can, subject to parliamentary procedure, continue with business when the House is in order. It may face political criticism for legislation passed without adequate discussion, but it does not lose its fundamental numerical advantage.
The Opposition, however, does.
This is why Tharoor argues that the assumption behind disruption — that “the government will pass the Bill anyway because they have the votes” — can be self-defeating.
Notably, the BJP has time and again attacked Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of deliberately disrupting Parliament to avoid a discussion with the Modi government.
The Opposition, especially Rahul Gandhi, has repeatedly alleged that its microphones are being switched off during proceedings. The Opposition said the mics of its MPs were turned off to prevent them from raising issues, questioning ministers and putting their objections on record, though the government and parliamentary authorities have rejected or disputed such claims.
A BILL IS MORE THAN THE VOTE THAT PASSES IT
The second part of Tharoor’s argument concerns legislation.
Parliament is not merely a voting chamber. Bills are introduced with stated objectives and reasons, debated by MPs, scrutinised through committees in some cases, amended where the House chooses, and ultimately put to a vote.
The parliamentary committee system exists precisely because detailed scrutiny cannot always be conducted effectively on the floor of the House. The Rajya Sabha‘s official material describes committees as a mechanism for detailed examination, with members able to deliberate at length, consider evidence and examine issues in greater depth. It also describes parliamentary control as “criticism, not obstruction; scrutiny, not initiative; and accountability, not prior approval”.
When the Opposition participates in this process, it does not necessarily have to defeat a Bill to influence it.
It can identify unintended consequences. It can propose amendments. It can question the assumptions behind the legislation. It can place an alternative interpretation on record. It can force ministers to respond.
And even when the government rejects those arguments, the debate remains part of legislative history.
This is particularly significant because parliamentary debate can help establish the political and legislative context in which a law was enacted. Courts ultimately interpret statutes by applying legal principles to the enacted text, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised the primacy of statutory language. At the same time, parliamentary material can have a limited role as an interpretive aid in appropriate circumstances. In a 2020 judgment, the Supreme Court noted that the statement of objects and reasons has a limited role, particularly when a court examines the validity or interpretation of an ambiguous provision.
Tharoor made a related point by recalling a conversation involving a High Court judge who had asked how legislative intent could be understood when a Bill had been passed without parliamentary debate.
His broader argument was that the statement of objects and reasons cannot substitute for political deliberation.
“The government has not had a chance to explain why they’re bringing the Bill other than this pro forma statement of objects and reasons,” he said. “And the Opposition has neither refuted it, nor given a counter-logic that the government was forced to respond to.”
The point is not that every Bill must be subjected to lengthy debate before it can become law. Parliamentary procedure allows legislation to be taken up in different ways, and a government with a majority is entitled to seek passage of its legislative agenda.
The issue is whether Parliament is being used as a forum for deliberation before that vote takes place.
THE NUMBERS DECIDE THE BILL. THE DEBATE TESTS IT
This is where the familiar distinction between majority rule and parliamentary accountability becomes important.
Tharoor recalled the famous quote Atal Bihari Vajpayee made to PM Indira Gandhi, during his years in Opposition, “We have the arguments, you have the votes”.
Whether the government has the numbers and whether the Opposition has the better argument are two different questions. A parliamentary democracy requires both to have a place.
Tharoor’s argument is not that political protest should disappear.
“You are actually depriving the Opposition of an opportunity to do all these things that I’ve mentioned to you,” Tharoor said.
If Parliament is not functioning, the Opposition might be denying itself the very institutional power it needs most.
– Ends
