If one ends up feeling slightly shortchanged, it is because one assumed that author Derek O’Brien, a seasoned and articulate politician and popular quiz master, would have presented his impressive data with more of his trademark humour, insight, and flair. A few amusing and colourful first-hand vignettes on the everyday working of Parliament, in which the author has occupied front-row seats for years, would have livened up what is a somewhat dry account of just how the BJP slowly subverted one of India’s most sacred institutions.

From a healthy interactive forum, O’Brien says , Parliament has transformed into an increasingly authoritarian legislature, with only the outward trappings and rules in place. Parliament today lacks the spirit of accommodation, discussion and consensus, which the makers of our Constitution had envisaged.

Still, O’Brien must be commended for driving home his point through a series of striking statistics and examples.…