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New Delhi: Days after the monsoon session of parliament ended with little debate, bills that were passed in minutes and the opposition and treasury benches at an impasse, a panel of parliamentarians reflected on the loss of the spirit of democracy that has come to mark the Modi government as it has moved parliament to a new building. 

The exchange took place at the launch of journalist Sobhana K. Nair’s new book Housing the Republic which traces the journey of the old parliament building from ‘Council House’ as it was known when it opened in 1927 under British colonial rule to the new parliament building that was inaugurated in 2023. 

The book launch in Delhi on Thursday (August 20) saw Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) MP John Brittas, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Menaka Guruswamy, former Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) (Shiv Sena (UBT)) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi and Nair discussing with journalist Nidhi Razdan, on how the democratic culture itself of the Indian parliament has changed with the move to the new building.

While the new parliament was inaugurated with the Sengol gifted to former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of Independence Day in 1947, Nair said one of her favourite anecdotes from the book was the exchange between the country’s first Speaker G.V. Mavalankar and then Indian high commissioner to London B.G. Kher in 1953 on having a ceremonial mace in the House as was the convention in several other Commonwealth parliaments. 

Nair said that while the new parliament now has a Sengol,........

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