The Hindu Business Line : Turnaround under Meira Kumar

Of all the party leaders who felicitated Ms Meira Kumar as the first woman Speaker of India’s Lok Sabha, only Mr Lalu Prasad characteristically dispensed with the politically correct phraseology of customary eulogy on such occasions, and came straight to the point, much like the child in the story Emperor’s clothes of Hans Christian Anderson. He cautioned the new Speaker against taking literally the effusive promises of cooperation from acros s the political spectrum in maintaining the decorum and dignity of the House and helping her in ensuring the smooth conduct of the proceedings. Coming from someone who knows those of his ilk inside out, Mr Prasad’s timely caution cannot be dismissed lightly.

Temple of democracy?

A good number of leading lights felicitating Ms Kumar used the flowery expression of “temple of democracy” to describe Parliament. Ironically, they also belonged to parties which, in the past, on many occasions, had chosen to desecrate that very temple by obstructing proceedings, indulging in barracking and resorting to what Ms Meira Kumar’s predecessor, Mr Somnath Chatterji, used to condemn as ‘rowdy behaviour’. Some members of those parties had also been involved in utterly despicable scams such as cash-for-questions and bribes-for-votes.

It is also an open secret that very few of them, if any, had fought the elections keeping their expenses within the legally permissible limit; figures in excess of Rs 15-20 crore per constituency are freely doing the rounds. Civil society outfits making a comparative analysis of the movable and immovable assets amassed by quite a few of the elected representatives from election to election have exposed the disturbing fact of their steep rise unexplained by known sources of income or the nature of their occupation. In other words, a sizeable number of people’s representatives begin their entry into the “temple of democracy” with false declarations on the wealth on which they are rolling and on the expenses incurred by them in fighting the elections. Add to this the phenomenon of persons with criminal antecedents of a heinous nature getting nominated and elected, and even appointed as Ministers. Indeed, Dr Manmohan Singh’s team has nine such Ministers, besides more than a hundred spotted by the media in the new Lok Sabha. And this, despite all the prattle on probity, integrity, honesty and accountability routinely spewing from political big shots.

Near impossible

Mr Lalu Prasad is right: Of what intrinsic worth are the promises of persons of such character? Yes, a revolutionary departure from old ways may still be possible, but only if a leopard can change its spots, if a dog’s bent tail can be straightened, if a circle can be squared, if sands (quarried legally) can be woven into a rope and if the sky can be bent to form a bow!

My be, there is no need to despair, however. There is a slender hope of Ms Meira Kumar’s term becoming memorable for a productive and harmonious turnaround. With her quiet dignity combined with firmness (witness how, unaffected by the praises being showered on her, she showed, on the very first day of installation, her capacity to be firm by instantly ordering the omission of the acerbic exchanges between Mr Lalu Prasad and Mr Sharad Yadav from the verbatim record) and with her silken, soft-spoken voice that compels attention, she may be able to inject the needed solemnity into the proceedings by shaming the MPs into a sense of chivalry, if not matching civility. Godspeed, Madam Speaker!

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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