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, Mavalankar had made his views clear that India does not believe in violence as a token of power, and instead believes in “love as the force of ruling”.While the monsoon session of parliament saw the opposition putting the government on the backfoot over Union home minister’s absence from parliament amid demands for a statement on the police action on protesters in the national capital last month, Chaturvedi said that it was not Amit Shah’s responsibility to merely come to his chamber and not the House.“It is his responsibility as the home minister to come to the House and not the chamber and give answers,” she said.While Tharoor did not make any mention of Shah’s absence in the House, he said that the opposition had demanded a discussion on paper leaks, which the government later agreed to, as well as the Ram Mandir donation theft. He said that a middle ground for parliament to be able to function can be through time being allocated for the opposition to raise its issues, “so the government can have its way but the opposition can have its say.”‘New parliament building is soulless’The panel also focussed on lost traditions in the move from the old building to the new. Tharoor said that the new parliament building is “soulless, lacks intimacy and encouragement of conversation.”“The soullessness of the place, the lack of intimacy, the lack of encouragement of conversation, the absence of a Central Hall where informal exchanges could take place between current, former MPs, observers, and even the old days media, all of these factors speak both to a lack of collegiality and conviviality across party lines, which is a defining feature of our times in Parliament,” he said.Brittas said that Nair was able to write the book because documentary archives were available in stark contrast to the secrecy surrounding the cost of the new building.“Eighty three lakhs were spent to build the parliament. But when asked about the expenditure on the new building – it is a secret. It cannot be divulged,” he said.Brittas also said that while the building is new, parliamentary discourse is at its lowest.Chaturvedi said that there has been a loss of humour, with the Treasury benches often ridiculing the opposition, while Brittas said that the new parliament building with separate areas for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and no Central Hall, creates a situation where MPs of the two Houses do not even cross paths inside the building, while lounges of the opposition and the government too are different. Chaturvedi also said that when Modi leaves the building, MPs remain inside until the prime minister’s cavalcade has left the premises. Ironically in her book, Nair has recalled that Nehru once complained that Central Hall had become a “bazaar” due to the comings and goings of visitors, journalists apart from parliamentarians themselves who had informal exchanges there.While parliament proceedings are now marked by a sense of hostility between the government and the opposition, with opposition speeches routinely cut off or expunged Nair said that the rule book on unparliamentary words has over the years become about 1000 pages long.‘No opposition parliamentarian allowed to say the word RSS’Brittas remarked that there is one word that no opposition parliamentarian is “allowed to say is RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh)” referring to the BJP’s ideological parent organisation.Guruswamy said that her maiden speech in the Lok Sabha during the discussion on The Supreme Court (Number Of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026 was disrupted by the Chair when she said that the government does not appoint judges from the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), minorities, and women but only those who come from their “ideology.”While the opposition MPs raised how an unprecedented number of MPs were suspended in December 2023, former Rajya Sabha secretary general Shumsher K. Sheriff who was in the audience recalled how he came under the line of fire and was heckled when the Telangana bill that bifurcated Andhra Pradesh was taken up in the Rajya Sabha in 2014. While the security personnel had moved in closer, Sheriff said that he did not feel the need as it was the parliament and the MP who had heckled him later came and apologised. The panel also focussed on how while the Central Hall in the older parliament and the design of the building itself with its circular structure allowed easy access to journalists, parliamentarians, the new building has strictly restricted access to the media.Brittas said that the move to the new building, has also shunted out journalists as parliament is not just about the parliamentarians but also about the press, which functions as the fourth pillar of democracy.