Parliamentary system 'ill-suited' for India, says Shashi Tharoor

Former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor on Monday said Parliamentary system was “ill-suited” to Indian national character but the country was “stuck” with it as it was conditioned to look at the British as “embodiment of everything”.

He said it was difficult for Parliamentary system to work in a country as populous and diverse as India.

“One of the reasons we are stuck with this parliamentary system that is so ill-suited to Indian national character is because it was the system that the British ran and we were very well conditioned to look at the British as an embodiment of everything,” he said.

Speaking on the last day of the Jaipur Literature Festival at a session entitled “On Empire”, Tharoor was in conversation with British Labour Party MP Tristam Hunt and journalist Swapan Dasgupta about the British rule in India.

The former minister recalled reading about how Indian nationalist leaders had reacted with horror when Clement Attlee, a member of the Simon Commission, had suggested that the country would be better off under a presidential system.