Page 207 - SST Class 08

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Parliamentary Government
Parliament is the highest legislative body in a
country. It represents the people, makes law and
oversees government functioning. In England,
the s overeign, the nobles and clergy as well as
the commoners represented the Parliament in
mediaeval times.
Parliament of India
WHY DO WE NEED A PARLIAMENT?
In India, the national legislature of elected
representatives is called the Parliament. At the
state level, it is called the Legislative Assembly.
No democracy can function without a Parliament
and India has no exception to this. We need
Parliament because of the following reasons:
1. The Parliament has the supreme power
legislation in India. It makes, amends and
abolishes laws.
2. The Parliament throughout the world
exercises some control over the executive. In
India, the executive, i.e., the Prime Minister
and his Council of Ministers are answerable
to the Parliament.
3. The Parliament makes the Budget for the
country. Public money cannot be spent
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unless and until it is sanctioned by the
Parliament.
4. The Parliament provides a forum for discus-
sion and debate on issues of public and
national importance.
MAIN REASONS WHY PARLIAMENTARY
FORM OF GOVERNMENT WAS CHOSEN
IN INDIA
India’s founding fathers did a lot of analysis in
deciding the structure and shape of our democ-
racy. Let us try to trivialise that. They ensured
what we got following the best practices of the
period back then. Instead of copying, they spent
a lot of time in poring over international systems
and arguing on relative merits and demerits.
The Parliamentary system ensures a better
representation of the populace and well suited for
countries with huge diversity. For instance, if only
one person has to be the leader, only the major-
ity community will rule. In a parliamentary
system, you can have leaders from various
communities and the smaller groups could form
alliances to keep a check on the majority. The
parliamentary system is also better in protecting
against an autocratic one-man rule.
India did not just copy the British Constitution,
instead the Constituent Assembly took inspira-
tions from various constitutions and modified
them as per India’s own requirements.
Comparing a monarch with a president is a basic
mistake for the simple reason that the former is
hereditary while the latter is elected.
Secondly, we adopted the parliamentary democ-
racy because this system is based on the principle