Though Indian MPs love to visit foreign countries on flimsy grounds, wasting exchequer’s money, they are yet to imbibe beter mannerisms of their foreign counterparts.It’s sad that unruly scenes over petty issues have become order of the day in our parliament. Interestingly, before the start of every new session of Parliament, the Speaker organizes meeting wherein leaders belonging to various parties assure the Speaker of not letting their MPs give way to indecent behavior in the Parliament. However,” promises are made to be broken”. So once these “bhailogs” (read MPs) are in the Parliament,they take no time in entering into “tamasha” (drama) of all sorts.Walkout at the slightest pretext is the hallmark of Indian parliament.All parties during some part of session loves to turn into “walkout party”.
Blame it on the media that has glorified the “walkout culture “of our parliamentarians. It’s a real shame that our parliament once known for standard debates has today turned into ideal place to know choicest abuses or unparliamentary expressions.Surprisingly, our Mps who love to give sound bites to media over serious affairs like drought or floods are often missing when debates over these issues takes place in the parliament. No wonder lack of quorum fails to shake the conscience of our MPs. But ask them to enter in dogfight over petty issues and I am sure there will be no lack of quorum. One thought that live telecast will bring some changes in instincts of our MPs but technological incarnation brought no major change other than making them fashion conscious.
Somnath Chatterjee once stated in frustration that “Member of the House must understand that they have accountability to people…..every issue cannot be raised always”. His experience as Speaker of Lok Sabha is bitter. That’s why protagonist in the movie “Deshdrohi” sounds right when he says that leaders have turned Parliament into a “Sabji Mandi ( Vegetable market ).I don’t know what people in other countries feel about their parliament.
Going by the news I have,it appears that in others countries too there is lot of frustration the way MPs are behaving. Sometimes back Nawaj Sharif said that the “Pakistani Parliament was being turned into a concubine”. In the wake of expenses abuse in Britain, the media analysts now believe that parliament there has turned into “a vile snake pit”.The Bulgarian Mps seem to have turned parliament into “circus”.One Laurie Oakes states that “parliament is usually 90% theatre but Mr. Rudd turned it into a 100% farce.” In this case we are talking about PM of Australia Mr Kevin Rudd. It appears that Australian Parliament has disintegrated into “a high-farce shambles”
However, being an Indian, I need to worry more what’s taking place in my country. I am really very sad that the highest forum of nation has been held hostage to dirty tricks of cocksure minds instead of turning into platform of eye-opening debates. Given the devious attitude of our electorates, there is little hope that right kind of people will be able to make their presence felt in near future. It’s not only time to subject our MPs to harsh code of conduct but also curb their access to super-facilities if found involved in rough episodes.
