‘Protests, if habitual, lose novelty’
With prolonged disruptions in the Monsoon Session of Parliament apparently weighing heavily on his mind, vice-president Hamid Ansari on Saturday disapproved of such conduct by legislators and told them that when protest becomes habitual, it loses its novelty and effect.
“Protest in registering a point is well-made. Protest, when it becomes habitual, loses its novelty, and, therefore, its effect,” Mr Ansari, who has often expressed his concern on the frequent stalling of proceedings in Parliament, told the newly-elected members of the Upper House.
In some plain speaking, he wondered whether protest “can be the only form of functioning? Can it be the totality of our forms of expression?”
He lamented that much too often, “we take the view that if we simply disrupt the proceedings of the House, we will make our point. I am afraid, it does not go down like that in the public.”
Observing that the people do not see such protests in good light, he said “Yesterday morning, I came across a longish editorial in one of our national newspapers. The caption was ‘Parliament — Urgent reform is needed.’ Then, it goes on commenting, not in complimentary terms, on the functioning of both the Houses of Parliament in the past few days. Prior to that, there was, in another newspaper, a cartoon which depicted the Monsoon Session. I don’t have the screen to enlarge it. But, I would ask the secretary-general to show it, because it is very telling. It is telling because there are popular expectations of the public and those expectations have not been met.”
“My plea to you is to please think about this and devise ways by which your right to protest remains unchecked, but that protest does not become an impediment to the rest of your work,”the vice-president said.
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