In any democracy, parliaments are the institutions where the two mainstays of democratic culture that Levitsky and Ziblatt mention in their book— "mutual toleration and institutional forbearance"—are supposed to flourish, for the simple reason that the opposition is also represented in these aptly named representative assemblies. But such values can only materialize if parliament remains an important institution whose rules are respected by the executive.
In Modi's India, parliament has experienced a decline. This evolution is paradoxical, because when he entered the Indian parliament for the first time in 2014 as prime minister designate, Narendra Modi bowed his forehead to the stairs to express his deep respect for what he called the "temple of democracy." Retrospectively, this episode looks like another of his theatrical displays, as never before has an Indian prime minister neglected parliament so constantly. On average, he has spoken 3.6 times a year in parliament: 22 times in 2014–2019 (fewer times even than H. D. Deve Gowda, who was prime minister for only two years). In contrast, A. B. Vajpayee made 16.7 speeches a year in parliament, 77 in six years. And Manmohan Singh stands in the middle, having spoken 48 times in ten years in parliament. In 2018, Narendra Modi spent fourteen hours in the Lok Sabha and ten hours in the Rajya Sabha, in contrast to Manmohan Singh, who did not speak much but who came and listened.
To circumvent the parliament, Narendra Modi has issued a record number of ordinances. While ordinances are usually resorted to by minority governments or coalition governments, the Modi government has used them more than any of its predecessors, despite the fact that the BJP enjoys an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. The number of ordinances jumped from six per year under Manmohan Singh to eleven per year under Modi.
The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are gradually ceasing to be places for debate. First, the number of bills that have been referred to parliamentary committees—the deliberative core of parliamentary work—has shrunk dramatically, from sixty-eight (71 percent of the total) in the Fifteenth Lok Sabha to twenty-four (25 percent) in the Sixteenth Lok Sabha—and two out of the nineteen bills passed in the last 2020 session. This is one reason bills are so poorly drafted: committees of scrutiny and oversight, traditionally not divided along party lines, used to amend bills very effectively and trained parliamentarians in the art of lawmaking. No recent major piece of legislation (including the bill revoking article 370 and carving two union territories out of the states of Jammu and Kashmir) has been processed by a house committee. Maansi Verma points out that "standing committees are routinely bypassed and if the government agrees to refer a Bill to a Committee for study, it is projected as an act of executive magnanimity. The executive also selectively approves recommendations made by a Standing Committee, many of which are ignored, and amendments to Bills proposed by MPs during a debate are defeated without even the pretense of a discussion on the same."