A day of disgrace in Punjab Assembly...

Harish Khare

The recent goings-on in the Punjab Assembly have brought no credit to anyone — neither the ruling party nor the Akali Dal — and nor is the AAP stand redeemed. My colleagues who have covered the Assembly for many, many years told me that they had never witnessed this kind of breakdown of good manners and parliamentary decorum. The roughing up of women MLAs by marshals was particularly ugly. 

A kind of Rubicon seems to have been crossed. As it is, Punjab politics is overloaded with delinquencies of its own, and now even the last semblance of orderly exchange — in the legislative assembly arena — is being given the go-by. The bitterness, rivalries and the disappointments of the electoral arena got played out during the Budget session. Punjab is the loser. 

The sad part is that it is the Congress party that happens to be ensconced on the Treasury Benches and all the ugly hangama took place on its watch. The Congress is one party that ought to have the greatest of stakes in ensuring that our constitutional institutions function decently and decorously. The Chief Minister is the leader of the House; and an institutional responsibility dwells on him to see to it that despite provocations and obstructions from the Opposition Benches, the House conducts itself with honour and dignity. 

The AAP is a newcomer to the arena. It is neither familiar nor, perhaps, is interested in getting tutored in the parliamentary rules and regulations. Its MLAs thrive on the politics of anger and righteousness. They easily got excited and provoked and allowed the ruling party to get away unmolested.

The Speaker, too, did not help matters ease. All presiding officers begin as “party men”, but their office demands that they move out of the ruling party box. In this age of relentless partisanship, the presiding officers find it difficult to live up to the GV Mavalankar doctrine that a speaker “will intentionally do no injustice or show partiality.” Mavalankar, who was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha, saw to it that the Treasury Benches, then headed by a giant of a man like Jawaharlal Nehru, never took the Chair for granted. The Punjab Speaker’s conduct fell short of the Mavalankar standards, but still it was totally unbecoming of the Akali Dal leaders to call him names.

Captain Amarinder Singh did himself no favour by not intervening and ensuring that the things did not get out of hand. His predecessor, Parkash Singh Badal, had built for himself a reputation of interjecting himself just in the nick of time to bring tempers down in the House.

The Punjab Assembly is one of the few legislatures still known for hosting serious parliamentary business. That reputation must not be allowed to get besmirched. 

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Two weeks ago in this space, I had lauded a family friend, Heera Chand Guglani, for having the clarity to put down in writing clear-cut directions as to what was to be done — and, what was not to be done —after his death. It seems that Mr Guglani is not the only one to have given thought to this post-death business of rites and rituals. Very many readers have responded and shared memories of men and women who had similarly penned their last wishes.

The most interesting letter came from Dr RK Malhotra, otherwise known as Dr ‘Kumar’ Panipati. He wrote to inform about “the great man of letters” from Haryana, one Bal Krishan ‘Muztar.’ As Dr Panipati says, ‘Muztar’ was a freedom fighter, poet, writer, scholar and journalist, who had specified that his death be accepted with courage and fortitude by his family and friends.” And “though being a high caste Brahmin”, this man had decreed that “do not read the Geeta near the lifeless body.” He had also instructed that no rites be performed.

Preparing for one’s death is a strange sensation. It is a reminder — a healthy reminder — of one’s mortality. It requires courage and rectitude. By giving precise and detailed instructions, one frees the children and grandchildren from the “guilt” of uncertainty of whether or not they had adequately performed the requisite rites for the departed soul. The religious clergy is always there to instigate feelings of guilt and possible retribution if this or that post-death ritual is omitted. 

I am prepared to consider the idea of providing space in The Tribune for a possible series...maybe, it can be called “When I take leave....”

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In this remarkable collection of voices from over three centuries, Vajpeyi seeks to claim a rich and honourable heritage and legitimacy for the creative community’s protests. Right from the Rig Veda to Ravish Kumar (of NDTV), the reader is treated to a very rich history of dissent. 

To begin, there was Buddhism and Jainism questioning and challenging the Vedic orthodoxy of rites and rituals. Then, there were Tulsidas, Kabir, the Sikh Gurus disagreeing and refusing to conform to the prevalent stagnant orthodoxy and its mores and manners and morals; then came Meerabai, and the Sufis like Amir Khusro, Dara Shikoh, Bulleh Shah-- each finding a personal creative idiom to argue and question and disobey. 

In the modern era, the great social reformers — Rammohan Roy and Jyotirao Phule — questioned abhorrent social and religious practices and the dogma that provided legitimacy to those practices; and, then came the glorious age of ultimate defiance — of Tilak, Gandhi, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Periyar EV Ramasamy; of revolutionary practitioners like Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose; of intellectual giants like MN Roy and BR Ambedkar. 

What Ashok Vajpeyi manages to show is that free India was able to acquire a national identity and a robust national self-confidence without feeling the need to shut up dissenting voices. And, there was no dearth of dissenters, well-meaning but sincere; there were poets, politicians as also practitioners of violent dissent like Kanu Sanyal and, in our neighbourhood, Paash. 

The larger and a very noble point Vajpeyi makes is that what happened at JNU — with Kanhaiya Kumar and Omar Khalid — was very much part of a democratic tradition. 

One of the finest pieces in this collection is from one of The Tribune columnist Keki Daruwala, who defiantly asks: “Why must artistic freedom be subordinated to that fake penumbra of hurt sentiments?” That, of course, is the cross most societies often find themselves wearing when a small but vocal group appropriates the mantle of collective sentiment and demands conformism and obedience from one and all in the name of the nation and state.

It is a collection that every school principal should be giving as a parting gift to each graduating student. 

I will be happy to invite any such principal and his/her students for a cup of coffee.... 

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