What we as countrymen watched in Parliament in the past week was nothing but pathetic farce played out by both the Government and Opposition benches. When it all ended, of course, the former could crow about its victory — how M/s Amit Shah and Narendra Modi combined to vanquish the entire Opposition. But it’s a Phyrric victory … it was the Parliament that in the end was the loser.
Why ?
Parliament is the place where the People want to see the best come out in their representatives. What they instead saw was the worst.
The tragic events of Manipur since month of May, and the ruling of the Supreme Court that followed roiling matters even further, were supposed to be the principal matter to be debated upon in the House. Instead, what was debated upon was whether it should be the Prime Minister or Home Minister who should be addressing the House and fielding questions while explaining the Manipur tragedy!
Cussed intransigence on the part of the Opposition with regard to how the debate must be conducted and equally imperious stonewalling on the matter by the Treasury benches led to Parliamentary proceedings becoming a pathetic spectacle of dysfunctional democracy.
Finally, on the final day after the frenetic clamouring of the Opposition had dissipated itself, a Motion of No-Confidence was moved by the Opposition and the PM had to come to the House to face the vote and address the people’s Assembly.
The Vote itself however inspired really no confidence at all in the minds of ordinary citizens. Their misgivings about whether their Parliament really works at all to deliver on the job have only grown graver than before.
Today, it’s really a broken down two-wheeler vehicle, this parliament … It now only runs on one wheel that’s fully inflated with a rather magnified sense of its own importance; and on the other wheel, that’s been fully deflated in every sitting of the House in the last 3 or 4 sessions, it’s being dragged along hither-thither with narry a sense of direction in which way it wants to go.
Modi came , he saw and he conquered …
The conquest was completed mostly by nonstop taunting of the Opposition with barbs, mockery, disdain and even ridicule heaped on them. It got so humiliating for them that they could take it no more and finally, deciding abuse was enough, filed out of the House all crestfallen midway through the session, before the No-confidence motion could be put to vote !
As an ordinary citizen I feel PM Modi could’ve gone easy on the relentless needling and taunting of the opposition and instead had had been more forthcoming on the Manipur issue on which the opposition parties had wanted him to give a clear and candid status report. He chose instead to frustrate and exasperate them all…
In his speech too he was very reticent about Manipur … He said nothing about the events in Manipur themselves but instead went on chastising the Congress Party for playing plain raajneethi using them. There was much deliberate obfuscation. That in itself is a tacit admission that the Administration—- both State and Centre — could have probably made a few mistakes in handling Manipur which they would rather not have come under public scrutiny anytime soon.
Granted that our dear Amit bhai did gave some kind of report on Manipur the previous day in parliament still , in his speech, couldn’t Modi-ji have supplemented it with his verily own full assessment? By not doing so, wasn’t the PM only ending up messaging what the Opposition was precisely alleging : that he thought Manipur was a tad much ado about nothing! Or else , he believed that everything on Manipur that had to be said in the House had already been said by HM Amit Shah … and that was the end of it. Nothing for him to say.. ..
To many like me, however, watching the TV proceedings of the farce in Parliament, the Home Minister’s reply to the No-Confidence motion did sound far less of a factual and detailed explanation on Manipur and much more of an aggressive counterattack on the Congress on all fronts … he blamed them for everything they did in history in the entire North East including Manipur.
That may all well be true, and one may even concede to HM Amit Shah . But then what the people of the nation want to know from the Govt. is whether the Administration/s did the very best possible under the circumstances to avert the tragedy that sadly unfolded in Manipur. Today we have absolutely no answers for that question.
Pitifully, that’s exactly where the Opposition too failed … They did no homework, presented no facts , raised no searching questions , and launched no sustained onslaught … Collectively, they all dithered , and had nothing to show other than self-righteous froth and foam and hardly any substance . They just let the Govt get away .
The opposition and the treasury both grossly disrespected the institution of the Parliament, IMHO. Today , Manipur is forgotten. Everyone instead is only talking only of how PM Modi vanquished the opposition.
That’s not really what our Parliament is for, is it, my countrymen?
Sudarshan Madabushi