Inside two of India’s oldest legislatures, a legacy of reforms

Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2026 01:30:37 +0000 Extracted Body: In the third week of June, the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu legislative assemblies will meet for their Budget session. The general public and political observers will be closely watching these legislative proceedings to see how the new governments address campaign promises made during elections. In both states, roughly half of the Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) are first-time legislators. They will be stepping into the hallowed halls of legislative institutions with a history spanning a century. Modern legislative institutions in India can trace their beginnings to the presidency towns of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. It was in these cities that the East India Company’s trade, administration, and law-making were carried out by a small council of the company’s officers, meeting in council rooms/houses. Over time, the British Parliament began to take an interest in India. Calcutta became the seat of British administration, with the Governor General at the helm of affairs. He was advised by a four-member council, and later, a law member joined this group. The British government also set up provincial councils, but it was not until the 1919 reforms that modern national and provincial legislatures were created. Then, in 1921, the Duke of Connaught came to hunt tigers and to inaugurate the legislatures being set up under these reforms. He inaugurated the provincial legislatures in Madras and Calcutta, and finally the national legislature in Delhi. Legislative institutions are defined by the passionate debates of legislators and identified by the buildings where these debates take place. In Madras, the Tamil Nadu Legislature meets in a building located inside Fort St George. The location is unique because both the legislature and the executive are within the same compound. Inside the fort, and not far from the assembly building, is St Mary’s Church, the oldest Anglican church in the country. It was the venue for the marriages of Elihu Yale (whose donation of books and materials led to Yale College bearing his name) and Robert Clive, the “unstable sociopath” who pivoted the East India Company from a trading corporation to an imperial power. In 1921, the West Bengal Legislative Council first met in the iconic Town Hall in Calcutta. And ten years later, it moved into its own dedicated, imposing building, now called Bidhan Bhavan. Within its boundaries are several fruit trees, a library, a museum, a century-old fire alarm box and a temple. The Bengal assembly has a British-style ceremonial mace that signifies the authority of the House. It is still in use, kept in front of the Speaker when the assembly is in session. A painting in the building depicts a pre-Independence scene, showing barefoot, liveried Indian men carrying the mace ahead of British officers wearing shoes. (The Tripura legislature also has a mace, and in 2019, an MLA ran off with it as a sign of protest.) The Bengal assembly was always at the forefront of technological innovation. Shortly after Independence, it began recording the audio of its debates. It was also the first to introduce machine voting in its proceedings. The success of machine voting in the Bengal legislature (albeit with a few hiccups) led to the technology’s adoption in the Parliament of India. The assembly also became the first to implement a comprehensive system of subject committees to ensure government accountability — a mechanism later adopted by the national parliament. The Tamil Nadu legislature has also not been far behind in its innovation and contribution to the country’s legislative fabric. In 1921, the Madras legislature became the first one to allow some women to vote in elections and by 1927, the government had nominated Dr S Muthulakshmi Reddi to the legislative council. In the 1960s, it was the first one to seriously discuss the declaration of assets and liabilities by its MLAs to address the issue of probity in public life. When political slugfests in the legislature were leading to changes in the record of its proceedings, it adopted a rule to protect their accuracy. Its rules now specify that a record of the proceedings, once published, cannot be altered or deleted by the Speaker or the House itself. It is perhaps the only legislature in the country which on two separate occasions suspended its rules to discuss the role of the Governor in the state. When the newly elected MLAs from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal meet for their Budget sessions, in two of the country’s oldest state legislatures, the people of their states would hope that their public representatives stick to the original mandate of these institutions — to make laws for the “peace and good government. The writer looks at issues through a legislative lens and works at PRS Legislative Research