Time to raise the bar on public life
A good deal has been said in recent years of the deplorable state of decorum in state Assemblies, even Parliament. The stalling of business in legislative chambers day after day, session after session, and the waste of public money that goes with this cynical display of the autonomy of the House, is par for the course. What beats anything hollow is the hurling of heavy-metal missiles in the form of microphones and the wholesale hooliganism that has surfaced in Assembly after Assembly.
In the Jammu and Kashmir legislature not long ago, a member hurled such invective at the Speaker, old enough to be his father, as may not be heard even among stevedores, sledging Aussie cricketers. The morning shows the day, as they say. The level of vicious personalised campaigning witnessed recently in Punjab and in Uttar Pradesh says a thing or two about those who would soon be gracing the Assembly. If such hardened representatives of the people proceed to belabour one another on the Assembly floor and make street fights look innocuous, no one should be surprised.
A leading light of the ruling alliance in Punjab, to take but one example, attacked the top gun of the rival camp in language that even villains in B-grade films might be too shy to imitate. “We don’t know how many wives he has, but all he has ever done is chase skirts, including from across the border”, went a typical jibe. This was earthy Punjab. So all is forgiven. The air may have been charged with language and metaphor that mothers may not want their young to hear, but the voter showed up anyway. The polling was 77 per cent in the state, higher than last time. The campaign in UP was hardly all old Lucknow sophistication, but at least sexual innuendo was eschewed. While candidates and their supporters spared the public language laced with energy and colour, we may be all but certain that the quality of the contestants is such as to give future presiding officers of the Assembly nightmares. A healthy quota of “history-sheeters”, and those accused of murder, rape and robbery, has been inserted into the fray by nearly every major party. We may tremble and wait to see how the legislature is run when these heavyweights make their entry into the august House.
The Election Commission should be heeded at least now and needed legislation brought in the next session of Parliament to ensure that men of the rough trades are kept out of the poll arena. Why blame the men of dark deeds? Let’s just put the onus on their respective parties.
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