India, Feb. 15 -- Turbulence in Parliament is no news nowadays. It creates a sense of deja vu. People have, in fact, stopped asking why our Parliament is not functioning because they are slowly losing interest in it. Old Parliament watchers would admit that somewhere along the way, our Parliament has lost its gravitas. Well, it can be said that Parliament too reflects the general decay that has happened in our socio-political and cultural life. The democracy that we have practised so far since Independence is at a crossroads today, and a kind of cultural conformism is taking hold of the citizens of India. They do not seem to worry about the perceptible decline of institutions of democracy any longer.

There is an inexorable surge towards ...