The Parliamentary Debates on Bangladeshi Migrants (1971–2009)

Author(s):  
Rizwana Shamshad

The chapter on parliamentary debates analyses the continuing debates about Bangladeshis that took place in the national parliament of India and how their presence was viewed and debated by different sectarian and secular regional and national political parties’ representatives. The Lok Sabha debate texts from 1971 to 2011 have been analysed in this chapter. It discusses the debates on Bangladeshi migrants before, during and after the previous NDA regime. The parliamentary debate provides a window to the readers through which it is possible to obtain a picture of what has been going on over the years in the main arena of Indian politics. It also gives a sense of the lively debates conducted by Indian politicians on the issue of Bangladeshi migration into India, the opponents and their allegations and the proponents who defended and sympathised with the migrants.

2021 ◽  
pp. 34-50
Author(s):  
Jonathan Slapin ◽  
Sven-Oliver Proksch

This chapter explores the theoretical mechanisms underpinning the participation of Members of Parliament (MPs) in legislative debates across a wide range of parliaments. It argues that researchers must examine both strategic interactions within political parties and political institutions to develop an understanding of which MPs take the floor and how researchers can use legislative speeches to measure the essential concepts of polarization, intra-party dissent, and representation. The chapter discusses the basic institutional framework that governs debate across parliamentary democracies, provides an overview of an intra-party theory of parliamentary debate, and considers various possible extensions of the theory. Finally, the chapter illustrates how scholars can integrate insights from theories of parliamentary debates and text analysis of parliamentary speeches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-195
Author(s):  
Rajkumar Singh ◽  
Chandra Singh Prakash

In the election of 17th Lok Sabha  held in mid-2019, the Indian political parties  tried hard to be a tie-up with each other against the present Modi-led NDA dispensation. In independent India, first, such attempt was made early in 1974 and started a new process of consolidation of opposition forces by the merger. In line, the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) was formed by the merger of seven political parties and in this process, the constituent units lost their identity in the BLD. At the time although Congress (O) and the Jana Sangh were ready to cooperate but refused to lose their existence. Their experiences of emergency proved a blessing for them and they came together and formed an alliance called Janata Party, to challenge the Congress leadership of the time. Likewise, as of today in 2018-19 the Bharatiya Janata Party is the country’s largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and all political parties of present-day India with Indian National Congress as forerunner with the help of regional party try a futile attempt first to challenge and then to defeat the BJP in various elections. Although with a great difference in the situation the motto of opposition parties has been one and only to give weighty protest to turn the events in their favour. This ups and downs of Indian politics may prove a path-breaking for other developing countries where political parties are struggling hard to gain power but did not succeed on account of causes best known to them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 675-684
Author(s):  
Johannes Krause

Despite the 2020 reform of Germany’s national parliament voting law, the debate about a robust voting system has not ended . Träger and Jacobs have convincingly shown that Naun­dorf’s suggestion to introduce a parallel voting system creates more problems than it solves, and thus more far-reaching approaches have to be considered . One way to stop the Bunde­stag from growing is to reject the two vote-system . Comparable to the system of Thuringia’s local elections, with open lists and three votes per voter, both the standard size of the Bun­destag can be safely adhered to and at the same time a personalized proportional represen­tation can be maintained . Among other advantages, the voters would have greater influence on the personalized composition of the Bundestag . In particular, reservations on the part of the political parties could stand in the way of such a sustainable solution to the ongoing problems with the German electoral system .


Author(s):  
І. А. Зарудна

The article is devoted to the analysis of the tools of education of social competencies of Stedun youth in Great Britain. Parliamentary debates are considered among the main tools. The author describes the technology of holding a parliamentary debate competition.


Author(s):  
Carole Spary

The chapter introduces the reader to selected frames that are valuable in work on gender and political representation: embodiment, authenticity, and performative labor of (especially symbolic) representation. The chapter illustrates the dominant scripts of political representation and appeals to situated knowledge during claim-making in the Indian national parliament; the policing of gendered and religious behavioral scripts for authentic representation of minority women in Indian politics; salient intersections of caste, gender, and embodiment in the performance of symbolic representation in the election of India’s first female Speaker in Parliament; and more localized scripts of performing gender in party political spaces. It discusses the performances of women legislators in institutional and noninstitutional spaces with the aim of illustrating the intellectual and practical merits of applying a performance-based approach to analyzing gender and politics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar ◽  
Ronita Sharma

The study is an attempt to understand the prevailing discourse in India on education as a right by closely reading the parliamentary debates on The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017. Prior to the passing of the above-mentioned amendment bill The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had debarred schools from detaining or expelling a child till the completion of her elementary education. This provision was amended by the Indian Parliament by passing the bill. When the bill was moved in the Indian parliament it generated debate on the various aspects of education and schooling. The study critically analyses the texts of two proceedings of the parliamentary debate: one from the lower house (Lok Sabha) and the other from the upper house (Rajya Sabha). The study concludes that the deliberation on the bill turned the right-based approach on elementary education almost upside down. The 86th amendment in the Indian constitution and subsequent enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had recognized children in the age group of 6–14 years as ‘right holders’ while the Indian state had been identified as the ‘duty bearer’. The discourse emerged in the Indian Parliament during the debate on the Amendment Bill, 2017 constituted Indian children of school-going age, their parents and teachers as groups accountable to the state for achieving the goals for universal elementary education, while the Indian state was constituted as an entity with the right to demand compliances from children, parents and teachers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 184-197
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane

This chapter studies how Indian politics is becoming a chremacracy—a system in which big money rules supreme. In 2018, the already shady party finances system took a quantum leap towards absolute chremacracy when the Modi government introduced electoral bonds, an instrument that allows individuals, corporations, and other legal entities such as trusts and associations anonymously to channel unlimited amounts of money to political parties. Under this new measure, anyone is allowed to buy tax-free bearer bonds for specified amounts via the state-owned State Bank of India (SBI) and then deposit them into the registered bank accounts of political parties. Like political violence, the organized secrecy over money irreversibly distorts the spirit and institutions of electoral democracy. The misallocation of resources that results from poorly regulated campaign spending ensures that elections and governments are captured by special interests. Ultimately, the grip of private money on electoral politics is detrimental to the quality of representation as it skews the field of available choices, and a system of free choice is gamed into one of prompted selection.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Hafez

This article analyses the two national parliamentary debates on the new Islam law of 2015 using a Viennese School of Critical Discourse Analysis. It asks how the new Islam law was framed from the perspectives of the political parties in power and of those in opposition. It also shows in detail which arguments were raised to defend, alter or support the proposed law by identifying the list of topoi used. It asks especially how racist arguments were debated between on one side a comparably tolerant Austrian system of laws on religion, and on the other, the dominant right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria, which aimed to foster Islamophobia.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 233
Author(s):  
Tanya Henderson ◽  
Camille Nelson ◽  
Zeina Chemali

Lebanon stands out in the Middle East for its relative political openness, religious freedom, and the academic and professional achievements of Lebanese women. Yet, paradoxically, it has one of the lowest rates of women’s political participation in the region. This paper is the result of an initiative undertaken by the Lebanese government in July 2012 to increase women’s political participation. Through this initiative, sex-segregated workshops on women’s political empowerment were held for male and female representatives of Lebanon’s political parties. The goal was to start a productive conversation that would ultimately lead to progress from the 2012 status quo of women constituting only three percent of the National Parliament of Lebanon. In this paper, we will describe the process and content explored during the women’s political empowerment workshops. Opportunities to affect change of the current level of women’s participation will be highlighted and conclusions will be drawn to aid similar initiatives.


2020 ◽  
pp. 030981682097111
Author(s):  
Suddhabrata Deb Roy

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, in India was widely contested by both political parties and various civil society formations. Shaheen Bagh, a sit-in protest demonstration which continued for over a hundred days in the nation’s capital from mid-December 2019 to late March 2020, occupied the central position within the corpus of these protest demonstrations. The protests at Shaheen Bagh were led by poor, Muslim working-class women, who had come out on the streets protesting and asserting their rights amidst the dominant ruling-class communal politics. The Shaheen Bagh protests were a potent force of the working-class and oppressed minorities of the country. The paper brings in Marxist and Gramscian perspectives to explain how Shaheen Bagh has contributed to Indian left-wing politics. The paper argues that the women in Shaheen Bagh have been successful in bridging the gap between the civil society and political society in the country and has to an extent, altered the very nature of Indian politics. Moreover, the assertive nature of the Muslim women regarding their religion and the support which they garnered from the Indian left, widely accused by many of being Islamophobic in nature, has wide repercussions as far as political and social alliances between the left and Muslim politics in India is concerned. The present paper locates the protest within the notion of subaltern unity and tries to analyse the possible impacts of the support for the protests, within and beyond the anti-CAA protest movement, from the Indian left.


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