By D N Singh
Did somewhere the parliamentary discourses derail from the path of decency and demeanor of the institution is all about. Perhaps during the recent uproar over the remark of the Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on the President of India somewhere it got down as regards the gravity of the House.
Adhir Ranjan, inadvertently or otherwise committed an offence through his words for which he had apologized and became the target of the barbs of one and all.
Then started the blitzkrieg and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi became the punching bag for the Union Minister Smriti Irani who nearly went overboard to target the ageing Congress leader in a somewhat upfront manner.
These were all going on in the name of the President of India, Draupadi Murmu who perhaps, does not require the sympathy of any political party nor is there any need to repeat that she came from so and so community.
Now as the Prez of India, Draupadi Murmu is not only the constitutional head but the Supreme Commander of the Indian Defence where her community has nothing to do. She just transcends all those mentions for any rhetoric support.
The level of discussion now in vogue reminds the earlier time debates when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had the composure to listen to his political rivals in the House.
In 1963 when Ram Manohar Lohia, the opposition leader whom Nehru held in high esteem, had raised the issue through a pamphlet as how Rs. 25,000 per day were spent on Nehru’s security, in contrast to the reality that, an Indian poor had to survive on 3 annas a day.
Nehru’s counter to the charge by Lohia was a smile when the former cited the Planning Commission statistics to say that, it was 15 annas income that an Indian poor survived on. When the members had their turns to speak but listened to the above two oratory giants while debating with all mutual regard.
When once Lohia raised the Indian failure by losing a huge patch of land to China from within Indian territory, Nehru defended by saying that, that patch of land does not grow even a blade of grass, so dispensable. To which Lohia countered by saying that, even on the head of the Prime Minister (Nehru) there is not a single hair, does it mean that the head is dispensable? Nehru took Lohia’s counter with the great sport amid some laughter.
That was the spirit and decorum which ruled the tenors of the Indian parliamentary debates those day. Few may be knowing that, Pandit Nehru always made it a point that, he did not miss a single debate by Ram Manohar Lohia in the house.
