Inder Malhotra

On the last day of April when the Lok Sabha was, as usual, plunged into bedlam, an angry friend asked me, "How is the conduct of these members of Parliament different from that of Bhajji on the cricket field?" When I answered that it wasn’t, he retorted, "If Bhajji can be punished, then why not recalcitrant MPs?" The next day both of us were elated because Speaker Somnath Chatterjee — his patience exhausted, as all his appeals for respect for Parliament’s dignity and decorum had fallen on deaf ears — named 32 trouble-makers and referred their case to Parliament’s committee on privileges.

However, the dismal note on which this briefly brave chapter ended on May 5, with the House being adjourned sine die four days too soon, is a cause for deep disappointment. For the anti-climax underscores that, in the current political milieu, there is no possibility of any disciplinary action being taken against even the habitual disruptors of Parliament. Not to put any gloss on the ugly situation, it was clear from the beginning that the Speaker’s long overdue action had little chance of being sustained. Almost immediately, it was under virulent attack from those parties and groups that had attracted the punishment, and there was no visible support for it from the bulk of the ruling United Progressive Alliance. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance even accused the Chair of being "partisan." Its argument — that the Speaker never took any action against the Leftists when they too raucously disturbed the proceedings — was, at best, meretricious. Until May 1, the Speaker had only appealed, sometimes with folded hands, to disruptors of all political hues without taking action against anyone. Was it his fault that when the time for disciplinary action came most stalwarts of shenanigans were from the NDA fold?

The patchwork compromise that ultimately resolved the issue and "saved face" on both sides is neither here, nor there. All too often during the last decade the MPs have collectively "vowed" to let Parliament run smoothly but only to break their pledge with impunity. Moreover, are Mr Pranab Mukherjee and Mr L.K. Advani sure that they can deliver on the solemn promise they have made to the Speaker?

On a cold December evening in 1957, after a debate that led to the resignation of the then finance minister, T.T. Krishnamachari, and departure of several top officials, including the famous H.M. Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru had spoken of the "majesty of Parliament." Those halcyon days, alas, ended with the Nehru era. Since then Parliament’s long journey has been steadily downhill.

The most chilling thought today is that, leave alone the rest of the term of the 14th Lok Sabha, no improvement in today’s utterly depressing state of affairs can be expected for a long time to come, if only because the composition and conduct of the next Lok Sabha are unlikely to be different from the present one’s. The furtive tabling of the long-delayed Women’s Bill in the Rajya Sabha, a precursor of things to come, is said to have taken place amidst "high drama." In fact, the spectacle was a low farce and deep tragedy.

In a symbiotic relationship with indiscipline at the fountainhead of Indian democracy is another equally injurious attribute of Indian public life. Improprieties in very high places abound and are on the increase. One is not talking of rampant and practically all-embracing corruption that has become a cancer without cure. The reference is to certain relatively minor infractions that are just "not done" in civilised societies. Here they are perpetrated as a matter of routine and indeed flaunted.

The two particularly distasteful examples of what I am driving at are the Union shipping and transport minister T.R. Baalu’s persistent and brazen attempts to promote the business interests of his sons, and the extraordinary journey to Florida, during the President’s three-country tour of Latin America, of her son, Rajendra Singh Shekhawat. Those who are bemoaning the "breach of protocol" in this connection are barking up the wrong tree. It is the blatant breach of propriety that is worrisome. Health minister Anbumani Ramodoss’s antics at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, knocked down by the Supreme Court, constitute not an impropriety but an outrage.

Mr Baalu’s exertions on behalf of his progeny, it may be said rightly, pale compared with the havoc he has been causing to the National Highway programme. But tragically nobody, absolutely nobody, is in a position to call him to order. To make things worse, leading lights of the political class have tended to defend him. Nothing better may have been expected from petroleum minister Murli Deora than the bland statement that everybody did what his colleague had also done! But why is the Prime Minister’s Office so coy about those eight letters that should never have been written? The BJP’s refrain about the good doctor being the "weakest Prime Minister ever" is a sour cocktail of gnawing frustration and pure malice. But there is no doubt that the present PMO is the least competent and most inept the country has known. The Prime Minister needs to crack the whip even at this late stage.

To revert to the curious flight to Florida, at one time the son of the then Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, got the prime ministerial flight from Moscow to Delhi diverted to Tehran so that he could deplane there for his own reasons. There was uproar in the country. The young Shekhawat’s lapse is no different. It is no good his saying that he paid his own fare. So did Kantibhai Desai for his journey home from Iran’s capital. Moreover, there is a glaring gap between Shekhawat’s statement and that of the spokesman of the Florida University. The young man claims that he had discussed only "academic matters," while the Florida University spokesman says that a possible "collaboration agreement" between the university and the Shekhawat’s educational institutions was the subject under discussion. The then President, Sanjiva Reddy, had openly told Morarji bhai that the latter’s son was running a "commission agency" from under the Prime Minister’s roof. An angry Desai vehemently denied the charge but the President was unmoved. With the utmost respect one must submit to the head of state that a similar stain should not be allowed to reach the door of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

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