Trailblazer state

In a representative democracy, legislative institutions play a key role not only in making informed legislation and policies but also in ensuring the quality of the performances of the institutions. Appropriate policies and legislations are outcomes of informed deliberations and discussions in the legislative institutions. In August this year, the Government of Tamil Nadu had celebrated the 100th year of its legislature under the presence of the President of India. More than the celebration, what we need at this juncture is building the capacity and skills of legislators, as the quality of debates and discussions have gone down in recent years in India. Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly has made a history of sorts by passing revolutionary legislations aimed at bringing social transformation in Tamil society, which could be a replicable model for other states. Yet it is necessary to evaluate the performance of the legislators and the Legislative Assembly to figure out what needs to be done to improve the quality of their performance. Legislative researches done by the pioneering institutions across the world reveal that through a meaningful democratic functioning of legislative institutions, the development of a country or a region could be achieved. These researches were particularly conducted in industrialised Western countries. Intensive and critical studies have been conducted in parliaments of the North- and West-European countries as well. Throughout the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, one could see an improvement in the performance curve but it has declined in the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. With liberal funding, a large number of studies have been undertaken but they are mostly based on American and British legislative systems. Even the societies liberated from the colonial yoke are fascinated to follow the American and British models without having a proper understanding of the suitability of such systems in local conditions. The British Parliament and the American Congress have drawn the attention of leaders across the world with the purpose of taking the salient features of the systems to their countries for adoption.

Less developed countries have adopted these models but the functioning of the system depends on the understanding of the system by the stakeholders and the structure of the policy of the country. It has been proved in major democracies that there is a close correlation between the effective functioning of legislature and the socio-economic development of the region and the country. Normally, we make a theoretical assumption that legislatures perform the function of allocating values, which is not the reality. In Western democracies, through their legislative research, corrective steps are being taken to improve the performance of legislatures. Qualitative training has been imparted to the newly recruited legislators, refresher programmes have been organised periodically and thematic seminars have been conducted. The capacity of the legislators has been enhanced through all such plans. Legislators have been conscientious on their roles and responsibilities, and they are ably assisted through the legislative service assistance system. Legislators' offices have been equipped with superior technologies and with professional staff. Despite these conscious initiatives in some of the countries, performance decline remains a phenomenon that needs to be addressed seriously by the leaders through research. The legislative research system is reasonably strong in some of the countries, mostly in Europe and North America, and corrective steps are being taken consistently. In the case of less developed countries, such rigorous structures and systems for research are lacking. As a result, legislative systems have become ceremonial institutions — reduced to a ritual, and one could often witness either veritable pandemonium or a full eulogy of the leaders. Policymaking became highly complex as science and technology reached their zenith. Furthermore, with market activities getting compounded each day, more rigorous capacity on the part of the legislators is needed to understand the critical development issues. At present, market forces enable the government to draft policy documents through their experts.

On many subjects, the governments have to rely on the experts serving outside the system to prepare policy documents and to oversee them. In this context, legislators' capacity appears to be inadequate in meeting the emerging challenges. Barring a few countries, there are no worthwhile training institutions to train the legislators in the art and science of legislative functioning. Yet another inadequacy is that the research culture in the universities does not support the legislatures by conducting the needed research in the legislative functioning and behaviour of the legislative institutions in the less developed countries.

In this context, one has to look at the celebration of 100th year of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. It is the time when we will carry out some meaningful exercises for strengthening our legislative system, and for which a committee can be constituted by involving public intellectuals and researchers to do some meaningful exercise. What could be done to build the capacity of our legislators can be thought of. In this regard, a legislative training and research institute can be set up with a minimum investment to improve the quality of legislative function, and thereby, placing Tamil Nadu as a trendsetter for other states. This has been the advocacy from 1990 onwards, based on my research on Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly performance and Legislative behaviour of the legislators in the 1980s. I have even submitted a proposal in this regard to the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Bhishma Narain Singh, and he evinced keen interest in this proposal. The moment we think of creating any new institution, we always think of high costs running into several crores. But this could be done even with a small cost. We have adequate human resources and a huge unutilised infrastructure. We only need thought and decisive action on this front.

The event in Tamil Nadu should not stop with mere celebration and it should lead to a meaningful action towards strengthening legislative functioning. Since MK Stalin is treading on a new path, he will set a model for other states by instituting the Legislative Research and Training Institute in Tamil Nadu.

The writer is a former Professor and Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies, Gandhigram Rural Institute. Views expressed are personal