Democracy asks for a wakeful electorate
13/07/2024
K N Pandita
India’s tryst with democracy tells us that democracy is likely to be abused rather than gainfully used when left to the voters who are maximally unaware of its pre-requisites. One significant discrepancy of democracy for a multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society like that of India is of elected members focusing on regional issues even at the cost of broad national interests.
When the new parliament met for the first time after elections, it was primarily for felicitating the Speaker who had won in a bilateral competition and took his official seat. Those who voted against him have to show him respect precisely in the way in which the opposition members elected to the Parliament had to be shown. This is solemn tradition and not an occasion to cast aspersions on the Speaker directly or indirectly as was done by the MP from Srinagar constituency. Let us debate it.
Agha Sayed Ruhullah Mehdi, the NC-sponsored MP elected from Srinagar constituency, made a brief speech which was full of venomous aspersions The House was stunned to hear him touch crudely on some very sensitive themes for which this was not the right occasion. The occasion was of felicitating the Speaker and assuring him of full support to run the parliament’s sessions smoothly. It was the occasion for the parliamentarians to forget who voted for or against the Speaker but to convey to him to trust the House in helping him discharge his duty as enshrined in the constitution
But the tone and tenor of the speech of the Srinagar MP carried a hostile sentiment as if he and his party had been done great injustice or discrimination by the Speaker in the previous sessions in which he was not an MP. His words reflected the angst of a parochial mindset taking the Parliament as a place where he was to lay open all the lividity he carried from his party’s closed-door politics.
We briefly quote him in original: “You will be remembered whether you forced the ruling party to listen to the opposition or silenced the opposition. You will be reminded how you remained silent when a Muslim MP elected by the people was called a terrorist. If an MP elected by the people can be called a terrorist in this House, then those Muslims can also be called terrorists on the streets,” Mehdi further said.
He is bringing the charges against the majority-elected Speaker of the House such as (a) he did not allow the opposition to be listened (b) an elected Muslim was called terrorist and he remained silent (c) ordinary Muslims are called terrorists. A genesis of all the three allegations will reveal that the MP was not addressing the Parliament but trying to consolidate his position on his home turf where he is locked in a contest not only with his political opponents but also in a feud with his own clansmen.
A hind side look will reveal that during 2023 budget session, Lok Sabha functioned for barely 33 % of its scheduled time of 46 hours and Rajya Sabha for 24 % of 32 hours. It was the Congress together with its allies that disrupted session after session of the parliament by resorting to meaningless claptrap and staging walk outs and strikes. The Speaker allowed the opposition to resort to all sorts of disruptions and yet Syed Ruhullah holds the Speaker responsible for not allowing the opposition to speak. We think he has been brainwashed otherwise had he cared to go through the history of last years ‘sessions, he would not make an imprecise statement.
As far as not stopping an MP from calling a Muslim MP a terrorist, well, an MP has the right to speak how he sees things. If some speaker called a spade by its name, he has not done anything wrong. Becoming an MP does not absolve a criminal of his crime. A criminal is a criminal whether he is or is not an MP. He has become an MP because his voters were either ignorant of his antecedents or deliberately overlooked it. However, the law of the land is neither ignorant nor overlooks the crime.
And it is surprising that Agha Ruhullah says every Muslim in the street is called a terrorist. Nobody ever says, and much less an MP, that Muslims or any other religious group is a terrorist group. Bt the fact is that everybody in any corner of the world says that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.
Agha Ruhullah said that Article 370 was abrogated in a huff after a few minutes of debate. The Speaker corrected him by saying that the debate on that bill lasted nine and a half hours. We would like to remind Agha Ruhullah that the issue of Article 370 has been decided once for all by the Supreme Court’s verdict that there is no flaw in passing the J&K Reorganization Act. He should stop driving a dead horse.
In an interview to a journalist, which has come on face book and gone viral, the MP has said: “a situation was created by the Centre in 1953 when Sheikh Abdullah was remove. At that time the government said there was no protest. But the truth is that anger and abhorrence were simmering in the hearts of the people of Kashmir to which we gave expression nearly forty years later (armed uprising of 1989-90 and expulsion of Hindus). Similarly, in 2019 another trick is played with Kashmir (Abrogation of Art 370) and again the government said that there was no resentment among the people of Kashmir. But resentment is there in great abundance and this will burst surely repeating the catastrophe of 1990. He asserted these ideas with fair amount of certainty saying “Ï come from the masses and I know the reality.”
In simple words the MP is warning the union government that the people are waiting to re-enact the killing, bloodshed, mayhem, loot, arson and disorder of 1990 at a proper time for which they are waiting. This is the mindset of the people whom Kashmiris have elected as their representatives in the Indian parliament/. Does this augur well for Kashmir and for secular democracy that stand abused and challenged by the MP of the most popular and historic political party of J&K, namely National Conference. Does the Indian tax payer pay all the fabulous conveniences and financial generosity to him to harangue them with his diatribes?
In final analysis, all sensible persons wish Agha Ruhullah that as a leader from younger generation of Kashmiris, he should think and act as a creative and progressive thinker who should look beyond decades and centuries. He tried to pontificate the Speaker that he does not belong to any party but to the party of the Constitution. Constitution expresses the will of the people and not of any party. The will of the people is reflected through the majority vote. The Constitution is the product of the will of majority vote. This will has allowed the parliament to make amendments to its clauses if and when conditions demand. The Constitution is not the holy scripture to be slung round the neck with the assumption that those who do no sling it round he neck are the antagonists and those who sling it are protagonists. This is precisely the message which the opposition conveyed to the nation by brandishing symbolic copies of the constitution when they entered the parliament Lok Sabha building, the same building which they refused to join for inauguration. Moreover, so many amendments have been made to the existing constitution ever since it was adopted and more will be made if needed or if logic demands.
(KN Pandita is the former Director of the Center of Central Asian Studies at Kashmir University.)
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