If India has handled Covid-19 so well, why did the Center cancel the winter session of Parliament?

Explain this combination of complaints from the Center during the last days:

India has done “very well” in containing Covid-19, much better than many other nations. In particular, the Delhi government was congratulated for its efforts. Meanwhile, the invitation has gone out to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be the main guest at the 2021 Republic Day parade, which will take place in just over a month.

However, the Center claims that conditions are not safe enough for Parliament to hold its Winter Session, even as tens of thousands are on the streets protesting three laws that were passed under questionable circumstances in September. And this, despite the fact that many of the countries that India claims to have done better than containing Covid-19 have found ways to hold sessions of their Parliament or equivalent institutions.

The explanation of the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Prahlad Joshi, was that winter is when the Covid-19 threat will be the worst, despite the fact that, according to official figures, the pandemic peaked at the national level in September and its peak November in Delhi is far behind. Furthermore, despite blaming winter, the government has signaled that it is nonetheless willing to hold Parliament’s budget session in January, not exactly a warm-weather month.

What gives?

There is no doubt that Covid-19 remains a significant threat, both to the general public and to the politicians and public representatives of India who have been devastated by the disease. Furthermore, the arrangements made during the months of August and September to prevent the virus from spreading during the monsoon session of parliament did not seem adequate, forcing it to be postponed early.

However, if the threat of a pandemic alone were the problem, then it would not be possible to hold a session in January. Or to promote the fact, as Joshi did, that the Monsoon Session was remarkably efficient, especially since efficiency often implies a lack of proper scrutiny of legislation and debate.

Instead, the government’s determination to cancel the Winter Session and go straight to the Budget Session is a thinly disguised effort to avoid discussion of the three farm laws that were passed under chaotic circumstances without a proper vote count in September. Since then, the laws have prompted tens of thousands of farmers to take to the streets, marching to the borders of Delhi to demand the repeal of the laws.

The Center has offered a number of important concessions to protesting farmers, including major changes to the laws themselves, although they have not been accepted. Where better to discuss these issues than in Parliament, where the laws should have come under scrutiny by a commission as the Opposition demanded in the first place?

The government’s hope is that it will somehow be able to overcome or crush the ongoing protests for January, and lean on the convention that the budget session is primarily focused on the budget, omitting important issues such as farmer agitation, government plans for the vaccine. release, the news that malnutrition in India worsened between 2015 and 2019 and the continued Chinese occupation of the territory in eastern Ladakh.

The irony is that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Parliament has primarily been used as a rubber stamp for executive actions that are not constrained by scrutiny, consultation, or supervision. In that sense, the government should have little to worry about when holding the Winter Session, while at least continuing with the pretense of giving India’s legislative body its due.

By dispensing with even this claim, fearing a few days with bad headlines or harsh questioning, the Modi government makes clear what it thinks of the Indian Parliament and its relevance to the Republic.