Is parliament supreme in a democracy? Prime minister Manmohan Singh believes it is, and said so on May 13 during the special session of parliament to celebrate its 60th anniversary. But American economist Christopher Lingle bags to differ. He says it is the citizen that should be supreme – a view that adds to the debate opened up by Anna Hazare’s movement.

“I think that is a dangerous attitude of the parliamentarians. That kind of reference frightens me in the sense that no parliament is supreme. Only supreme element, in my view, is the citizen of the country,” he said in an exclusive interview with Governance Now this week.

He added, “If parliament is supreme, then we are their servants. That is not what democracy is. It is a disgrace of a democracy to have so many people in parliament, who are charge-sheeted, serving as elected officials,” he said.

That reminds us of Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal’s remarks that angered many MPs.

Professor Lingle, who now teaches in Guatemala and was here to deliver a lecture on democracy, asks why people can’t take a dig at the parliamentarians. “Firstly, I believe those potshots against parliamentarians were fair comments. Secondly, these people make comments because there is reason to do this. There are also many reasons to complain about policy inertia, policy paralysis and unfulfilled promises.”

A case in point is the sliding rupee and how our policymakers are unable to do anything about it. “If the government had wanted to do it or planned to do it (make rupee fall), they could not have done a better job. They have done everything wrong so that rupee slides further. It is not over,” said the economist who hit headlines after his prediction about the Asean financial crisis came true in 1997.

“Everything they (government) have done is another nail in the coffin of rupee. There is a total mismanagement of economy by the government,” he said.

What the government has done in the last few years, he said, is only opened themselves to criticism. “The fact is that they (government) can’t even come to consensus on how to stop policy paralysis, the sliding of rupee, holding back reforms, driving foreign investment away and retarding domestic investment,” said Lingle, who is a frequent traveler to India.

The only thing people can do is to question authorities more and more, he said. “That will be good for democracy.”

Don’t get him wrong. He said, “I am optimistic, most optimistic about India, when I am not here. When I leave India, I think about possibilities, people and their abilities, I become very optimistic. But when I come back to this country, I read in the newspapers the nonsense about the public policy, ridiculous arguments made by politicians who can’t fix the problem, make me pessimistic.

“India sometimes takes one step forward and two steps backward,” he noted. Prof. Lingle also suggested that there is no wrong in criticising democracy, “When we become proud of democracy, get emotionally attached to it, believe in it and desire it more, it makes us incapable of seeing its fault.”

He was also subject to arrest in Singapore, when he wrote against the government of the city-state in 1994 in the International Herald Tribune saying it was an “authoritarian capitalist” country.

Read Professor Lingle's full interview in the forthcoming edition of Governance Now