The relevance of Vidhaan Parishad visavis the Upper House

The decision of Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamta Bannerjee to revive the Vidhaan Parishad the upper house of the state legislature has created flutter in the media as well as the political circles of the country. Many of them have opposed the idea of reviving the upper house on one pretext or the other. The first and foremost argument against it is that it is an extra burden on the state finance. The second is that it has been misused by the ruling parties to aggrandize their political segments to further their political ambitions. But both arguments seem to be based on preconceived notion that the system is bound to be misused whoever handles it. First of all the very institution of the upper house is not an evil in itself. It is the misuse of power which is at the core of the logic. But the possibility of misuse cannot be the sole criteria to oppose the system. It is the motive of the persons at the helm of affairs which should be at the core of argument. If the government’s intentions are honest and sincere then there cannot be misuse of a system. If we take it another way, the Lok Sabha and the Assemblies too are misused in favour of a particular politician or party. Directly elected body is no guarantee against abuse of power as argued by a section of the print media. Besides the upper house can serve as an effective tool to arrive at a mature judgment which is so essential for a fledgling democracy like ours. Fledgling in the sense that ours is a society where only little more than half of our population is literate. The abject poverty and moral deprivation hardly allows it to foster democratic ethos which is so essential for running of a parliamentary system of democracy. Besides. the clout of money and muscle force in our country makes the democratic functioning too difficult as is proved by a recent happening in U.P where loot of government money led to the killing of three seniormost doctors. Therefore, our constitution makers had the vision to provide ample checks on the parallel centers of power which is clearly visible in our polity. In this case, the upper houses are suitable instruments of change with a conscience. According to the opponents of the proposal if there are flaws in the constitution of the Rajya Sabha that does not preclude that it should be abolished. If the patient has cancer it does not mean that he be killed if there is no immediate cure. To my view, if a party or combine has been voted to power then it should be construed that the promises which were made during the mandate should also be fulfilled. The second argument about the financial burden is also not based on sound judgment because then the best solution can be, let there be no elections then we can save billions of rupees every five years. Democracy and freedom comes with a cost which we have to bear if we want to run the system. Let the intellectual class of the country come forward with their opinion about this ongoing argument about the feasibility of the upper house. Then only the air around the issue can be cleared and I hope that the conscious strata of the society shall not stand mute to the happenings around us.