Anti-defection law

I was watching The House of Cards, season one, the second time. Frank is looking to get his policy drafted into legislation, and works to get enough legislators on his side. In this effort he requests Claire, his wife, to speak to a couple of legislators, and convince them to vote in favour. Claire tells the two gentlemen to vote their conscience, as she has motive to see the bill defeated.

I was thinking of similar situations in India, where the party whip issues a whip to ensure that all party members vote the line of the party, failing which they may face expulsion from the party. The kind of conscience voting is simply not feasible here. And any member cannot genuinely have a different point of view on a particular issue, while agreeing or falling in line with party philosophy in general.

This also makes debates on such issues irrelevant, as members are forced to restrict their expression to the party line, and we may be losing out on valuable inputs from members, if there are any. And for the same reason, parties fear the anti-defection law. The anti-defection law was probably passed with good intention, to prevent corruption and cross-voting without adequate grounds. But it has gone against the principle of people representation.