Ashok Ogra
Today, the Prime Minister dedicates the new Parliament House to the nation. Indeed a proud moment for all Indians. However, for world’s largest democracy to regain its respect and stature, the elected representatives must eschew confrontational posturing and instead engage in meaningful debates and discussion. That presupposes no frequent disruptions or walkouts.
Also, as John Stuart Mill has observed suppressing factions of dissenting opinions would destroy liberty and ‘liberty is to faction what air is to fire.’
It is also hoped this new architectural marvel will truly symbolize the supremacy of ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ and substantially redeem the pledge made to the people at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947.
Equally important facet of a vigorous democracy is the use of wit and humour and even acerbic comments inside Parliament- without being heckled. Sadly, these days, it’s hard to find anything funny in politics. With every political question now controversial and fodder for a fight, it can be downright stressful-and things only get worse. In the past, it has been used more so by those occupying the opposition benches in Parliament as it helps them pack extra punch in their criticism of the government.
MP: “Mr Speaker, half of the members in this house are stupid.”
Speaker: “Honourable member please withdraw that statement.”
MP: “My apologies Mr. Speaker, half of the members in this house are not stupid.”
Speaker: “Thank you, let’s move on.”
The present lot of politicians may have a cupboard full of skeletons, but it is bare when it comes to humour or political invective? That explains why we don’t get to hear such light hearted exchanges among elected representatives across the world nowadays but more so in India.
American President Abraham Lincoln had a barbed tongue which he used to devastating effect on his opponents. Once accused of going back on an election pledge, he countered, “Bad promises are better broken than kept”. Must be the envy of politicians today, given their penchant for exacting standards of political correctness these days.
One of the greatest of all repartees involves Churchill and Lady (Nancy) Astor, the first female MP. Once at a dinner party, she got annoyed at an inebriated Churchill and blurted out, “Winston, if you were my husband, I’d put poison in your tea.” Churchill’s famous response: “Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
In India, one of the earliest and the memorable light hearted comment came from the original nightingale of India Sarojini Naidu. In response to Governor General Lord Mountbatten’s comment about Mahatma Gandhi’s frugality, she purred, “You will never know my dear Lord Louis what it costs the Congress party to keep that old man in poverty.”
E. Jayakrishnan, who has researched this subject in great detail, notes that ”cutting remark, that wry aside, the subtle verbal knife that turns, the ultimate putdown, is remarkably absent from the scabbard of Indian political and parliamentary discourse.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “humour and wit are gradually fading away from parliamentary proceedings as members are worried about what colour the 24×7 media will give to even a similie.”
In the1950s and 1960s, when the Indian Parliament was young and had stalwarts like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, Piloo Mody and many others, they were able to handle bitter criticism and sharp verbal ammos with ease.
Lohia would attack Nehru with ferocious wit and the latter would retort with equally biting words. Yet, sessions were not sacrificed because Lohia called Nehru a “bald man”.
Once, Lohia told the House that Nehru wasn’t an aristocrat he was made out to be. “I can prove that the prime minister’s grandfather was a chaprasi in the Mughal court,” Lohia said. To which, Nehru smiled and replied thus: “I am glad the honourable member has at last accepted what I have been trying to tell him for so many years. That I am a man of the people.”
Not one Congressman rose up and screamed: “Aapne hamaare neta ko chaprasi ka pota bola. Shame. Shame.”
Nehru’s finance minister, TT Krishnamachari, once described Feroze Gandhi as Nehru’s “lapdog”. Feroze Gandhi didn’t take that lying down. He said since Minister Krishnamachari considered himself a pillar of the nation, he would do to him what a dog usually does to a pillar.
Piloo Mody is often cited for examples, like his reaction to Mrs Indira Gandhi’s charges of being destabilized by foreign intelligence agencies: he promptly pinned an ”I am a CIA Agent” button on his pet poodle.
Then, there is this one by former Prime Minister Vajpayee, then Jana Sangh Member of Parliament, characterizing Indira Gandhi’s move to extend the life of the Lok Sabha by an ordinance under the Emergency in 1975 as “Parlok Sabha” – parlok being the Hindi equivalent of hell.
Who will forget this jibe uttered by Telgu Desam MP, P. Upendra, who, when Rajiv Gandhi appeared in the Lok Sabha on his return from yet another foreign trip, ceremoniously began a speech by saying, “I would like to welcome the prime minister on one of his rare visits to New Delhi.”
On 4 May 2012, when Tathagat Satpathy was participating in the discussion on the Indian Economic Council Management Bill, 2012, the Chairman interrupted him by saying, “You speak, but you have to be short” and Satpathy was prompt to say: “Sir, I am very short. I would like to be actually six feet and two inches, but I am very short!”
On another occasion, on 24 July 2009, while initiating the debate on the Finance Bill,2009, former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh told the Finance Minster Pranab Mukherjee, “I speak from personal experience, I lost my hair when I had experienced this”, the Pranab Mukherjee was quick to respond: “I have already lost.”
Of course, though the recent sessions of Lok Sabha would be considered the most poetic in the Indian Parliament’s history instead of humour and wit. According to Dr Muckta Karmarkar, Mirza Ghalib is the most quoted poet, followed by couplets in Bengali, Punjabi and Sanskrit.
In January 2018, when the Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge told Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in chaste Hindi that his motion for adjournment has been turned down, Mahajan responded quickly saying the motion had been rejected. “That’s what I said in Hindi.I know a little bit of Hindi,” Kharge said.
Mahajan answered, “Your Hindi is better than mine. Maybe there is a problem with my hearing, and it’s all because of you (as you are always protesting loudly).”
Kharge shot back loudly, “I will recommend you to a good doctor.” On hearing this, there was laughter all around.
The latest was the Congress party’s decision to boycott Parliament because Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused his predecessor Manmohan Singh of not being corrupt while his government was full of corruption.
The trouble is he used a “bathroom” metaphor. He said: “Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on.”
That may not be a pretty picture, but it is definitely funny. What is funnier is that the Congress believes this jibe is reason enough to boycott work.
Regardless, the fact remains that even the quality of wit and humour has gone down. Our Parliament is poorer today as we don’t have stalwarts like Krishna Menon. The sharp-tongued Krishna Menon’s cutting comment when American arms aid to Pakistan was described as not being directed at India: ”I am yet to come across a vegetarian tiger.”
Do we Indians and our elected representatives take themselves too seriously, precluding the light touch, the hallmark and prerequisite of humour? Or, is it that humour is a collateral victim of the general lowering of the standards of debate and the raucous functioning of the Indian Parliament?
When the House was discussing a resolution regarding constituting a committee to examine the question of direct telecasting the proceedings of Parliament, an interesting exchange took place between Shrimati Margaret Alva and Minister for Information & Broadcasting P. Upendra in the Rajya Sabha: Shrimati Margaret Alva : “Are you aware that in the House of Commons they are having a beauty parlour attached to it”? Shri P. Upendra : “We will have it here for you also. I don’t think you need a parlour. You are beautiful even without a parlour.” (HUMOUR IN THE HOUSE: A GLIMPSE INTO THE ENLIVENING \ MOODS OF RAJYA SABHA by DR. Yogendra Narain, ex. Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha: 2003 publication).
Whatever the reasons, the disheartening fact is that the electorate of today is deprived of laughter because we don’t have stalwarts like Mahavir Tyagi whose this exchange with Nehru remains one of the most memorable wits used in the Lok Sabha.
In a parliamentary debate on the war with China in 1962, Nehru told Parliament that Aksai Chin, which the Chinese had occupied, was an area where “not a blade of grass grows”. Thereupon a senior Congress MP, Mahavir Tyagi, pointed to his own bald pate and exclaimed: “Not a hair grows on my head. Does it mean that it should be cut off and given to China too”?
In the words of late President K.R.Narayanan ‘legislature ought to be an exciting place reverberating with debates and arguments and scintillating with and humour.’
Sadly, we neither get to witness scholarly debates nor are we treated to light hearted exchanges. And yet bills are passed and laws are made.
This reminds us of Will Rogers, who is credited with making a disparaged remark on the functioning of the US Congress: “When Congress makes a law “it’s a joke; and when Congress makes a joke, it’s a law.”
Ultimately, it is not the beauty of the building but the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.
Winston Churchill has rightly observed that ‘we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.’ It is hoped the new parliament will deliver on the promise of democratic governance and, at the same time, welcome light-hearted remarks without inviting a walkout. Wit, humour, laughter … can play an important role in lubricating human interaction and calming frayed tempers of our MPs. Remember, Indian electorate too deserve a fair doze of entertainment.
(The author works for Apeejay Education, New Delhi)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
