India, Dec. 20 -- The 19-day winter session of Parliament closed in a dramatic manner on Friday after two marathon nights of debate that spilled beyond midnight. The productivity figures of 111% and 121% for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, respectively, might look impressive (reflecting the long hours of sitting in the final week, more than anything else) but they hide the fact that the session was largely lopsided - with the first few days marred by disruptions, followed by two debates and then a flurry of important bills rushed through in the closing days. The first week of the session was spent in breaking a gridlock between the government and the Opposition and then discussions on issues such as fake news, digital ecosystems and a cess on paan masala. The second week was dominated, first by a rousing, if somewhat ill-timed, debate on Vande Mataram, and then another debate on electoral reforms and voter roll lacunae, a pet issue of the Opposition despite no conclusive evidence and no proof that it has grassroots resonance. Both debates were high on political rhetoric and symbolism - the government pushed the first idea while the Opposition backed the second idea - but left little time for a raft of key bills that were cleared by the Cabinet on Friday of the second week and then pushed through Parliament in the third and final week. All of these bills were of huge public and national consequence. One of these bills - the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) or VB-G RAM G - sought to replace the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that was a showpiece of the previous UPA administration. A second - the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill, 2025, - proposed the grant of licences to private companies to operate nuclear power plants, the removal of an existing contentious liability clause for suppliers of fuel and technology, as well as the rationalisation of the levels of payouts by operators in case of accidents. A third - the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 - sought to establish a three-council commission as a single higher education regulator, tasked with enforcing outcome-based accreditation, setting academic standards, and granting graded autonomy to higher education institutions. And a fourth - the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025 - allows 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in insurance in a move aimed at boosting capital inflows and expanding one of the world's fastest-growing insurance markets. In each of these cases, the Opposition demanded that the bills be sent to parliamentary committees for greater scrutiny, but in only one case - the higher education bill - was this successful. This isn't desirable. Parliament is meant to be a check on executive power where the representatives of every person in the country deliberate on the laws that govern every citizen. Rushing bills through on the final few days threatens to erode the status of the temple of democracy, especially when time was spent on other, less relevant, debates. Similarly, the Opposition must decide whether time used up in disruption is better spent demanding accountability from the government. Ultimately, this phenomenon is yet another symbol of the sharply polarised politics that has unfortunately erased any middle ground or space for parliamentary manoeuvre. Recovering that tradition will take far more than semantics....